Durban - The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has welcomed the allocation of R351.1 billion over the next three years to transport and logistics, which includes Sanral, by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in his Budget speech.
The agency said six Sanral projects to the value of R20bn were under construction.
Sanral CEO Reginald Demana welcomed the minister’s announcement.
“The transport sector gazetted 16 strategic integrated projects in 2020. Sanral continues to improve the capacity of several routes on toll and non‐toll networks and 11 projects with a combined value of about R20bn have been prioritised. These projects will create an estimated 10 000 jobs during construction.”
Demana said these projects included: the N3 Cato Ridge to Dardanelles, N3 Dardanelles to Lynnfield Park, N3 Ashburton to Murray Road, N2 EB Cloete Interchange, N2 Mtentu Bridge and N2 Msikaba Bridge.
He said an estimated R6bn of these projects were earmarked for targeted enterprises in line with the country’s small, medium and micro enterprises development agenda.
“We don’t just develop physical infrastructure in the form of roads and bridges, but also ensure that when we execute these projects, we develop the communities in the vicinity.
“We encourage our contractors to adopt a similar approach to community development. Of course, the element of training and skills development in line with the Seta’s (Sector, Education and Training) functions will also be part of these projects, even more so going forward.”
Demana added that Sanral received a special allocation of R23.7bn in 2022/23 as a partial solution to the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project not generating enough toll revenue to service the debt raised for its construction.
“This allocation is expected to provide the agency with sufficient funds to service several large debt redemptions and related maintenance in 2023/24. As a result of this once-off allocation in 2022/23, spending on the road transport programme is expected to decrease at an average annual rate of 4.1%, from R60bn in 2022/23 to R52.9bn in 2025/26.”