The South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited or SANRAL is a South African state-owned company responsible for the management, maintenance and development of South Africa's national road network. Founded in 1998, with the Minister of Transport as the shareholder representative for Government, SANRAL has become a fully-fledged company growing and consolidating its skills and experience mainly through the institutional knowledge of the long-serving leadership and SANRAL's employees.
These employees are housed in five offices covering four regions and all nine provinces countrywide. SANRAL manages over 22 000km of the national road network. These roads are the country's single biggest public asset and critical to South Africa's future economic and social trajectory. SANRAL's operations are divided into two broad categories, namely toll roads, which are self-funding, and non-toll roads, which are funded by transfers from the Department of Transport. The toll roads comprise 13% (approximately 3 000 km) of its responsibilities and non-toll roads 87% (approximately 19 000 km).
While SANRAL has been extremely effective in the past 20 years, with the retirement of its original CEO came new leadership. This management brought with it a sea change and the desire to turn the good ship SANRAL in a new strategic direction. SANRAL will continue to do what it had always done so expertly, that is to engineer safe roads – but a new strategy will guide it.
This new strategy, Horizon 2030, places specific focus on four core areas, namely roads, road safety,
stakeholders and mobility. In addition to crystallising this new focus, SANRAL actively seeks to deliver Government programmes.
SANRAL takes seriously its duty to build and maintain a road network that creates a legacy of connecting people, moving the economy, developing communities and facilitating trade.
Furthermore, by seeking to meet Government's objectives through its application of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, 2000 among others, SANRAL leverages its procurement process to empower people as well as seeking to reduce poverty through opportunities that it creates. These opportunities take the form of procuring works and services, training people to be economically active and promoting small-, medium- and micro-enterprises (SMMEs).
In future, SANRAL aims to be funded through an integrated funding model which will ensure that it continues to use public funds to deliver road infrastructure, while also identifying opportunities to use private sector finance and generate own revenue.
The SANRAL of the future is envisioned in Horizon 2030. In order to achieve that future, SANRAL has spent its two decades of existence making investments. These investments have led SANRAL onto the Road to Success.