In August SANRAL started issuing major road construction tenders to the value of more than R40bn. This will continue over the next two to three years.

“We expect a surge in road construction projects over the medium-term framework as part of the broader national efforts to invest in economic infrastructure,” says Louw Kannemeyer, Engineering Executive.

“We are confident that this investment will help to boost the construction sector which has been under severe pressure in recent years, and also cascade down to black-owned and emerging enterprises which will receive much larger shares of tenders in future.”

Treasury has allocated about R21.5bn per year for the maintenance and improvement of SANRAL’s 19 262km non-toll network. This will go towards a total of 940 projects, of which 325 are already under construction.

Kannemeyer says the new projects will include some 90 major capital works projects larger than R500m each which will go out to tender during the three year medium-term period.

Tenders to the value of R8.3bn for construction work on the N3 between Durban and Pietermaritzburg will go out to tender during the current financial year. This is financed through the infrastructure stimulus package announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018.

This will include seven major tenders on the N3 which will be issued within the next months once the regulatory approvals have been received and land acquisition finalised.

Smaller tenders related to routine road maintenance and periodic maintenance across the entire SANRAL network and in all nine provinces are also being issued. The more than 50 tenders will be released in a controlled manner so as not to flood the market.

Major tenders will be issued for work in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and North West – Moloto Road, the Thembisile Hani and Ephraim Mogale municipalities as well as Rustenburg.