The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) is ready to implement R30-billion worth of construction projects as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for “shovel-ready” infrastructure development projects to unlock South Africa’s economy.

President Ramaphosa recently hosted the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium of South Africa (SIDSSA) and called on both the private and public sector entities to invest in and unlock infrastructure development to stimulate the South African economy.

The President’s call was followed by a commitment from the Minister of Transport, Mr Fikile Mbalula, that road infrastructure development would be a key contributor to South Africa’s economic recovery in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which had caused wide-spread economic destruction and loss of life. Sanral’s Engineering Executive, Mr Louw Kannemeyer, said the road agency had a portfolio of “shovel-ready” projects which would be implemented during the course of the 2020/21 Financial Year and beyond.

“In the current financial year, Sanral has advertised 278 maintenance, operations and construction projects worth approximately R30.2 billion.

So far 136 projects to value of R7.3 billion have been awarded,” Mr Kannemeyer said.

Furthermore, Sanral in a press release, stated it plans to roll out over 200 additional road infrastructure projects across all nine provinces of South Africa, impacting directly on economic development, job creation and economic transformation.

It is also worth noting that 12 projects with an estimated value of R12.1billion had to be cancelled and re-tendered.

This, Sanral said was largely due to non-compliant bid submissions that were received.

“This is one of the major contributing factors to the delay in awarding tenders,” the statement reads.

Read the complete article in the Highvelder.