Sanral’s road network helps drive SA

Leading a multi-billion rand institution that is mandated to manage South Africa’s national road network and infrastructure takes strength. This is a trait that Lehlohonolo Memeza, Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), believes is helping her implement the national roads agency’s plans.

Memeza became acting CEO almost a year ago, three years after joining the agency as the Chief Audit Executive. While she admits that being at the helm of Sanral is challenging, Memeza has made her mark. She is spearheading the recently launched Operation Vala Zonke – an initiative by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula to eradicate potholes by March 2023. While the national roads are largely pothole free, this is not the case with local and provincial roads. At the launch of the programme in August 2022, Minister Mbalula said that maintaining good road infrastructure starts with preventing the deterioration of existing roads, many of which have outlived their original design lifespan.

Memeza also led Sanral’s KwaZulu-Natal flood disaster response – conducting assessments and repairs that amounted to billions. The N2 was severely damaged by the floods and the alternative routes, the R102 and M4, were also impacted. As a result, Sanral’s board decided to suspend toll fees at both the uThongathi and Umvoti toll plazas on the N2, she says.

Memeza has been successful in re-advertising five tenders for major upgrades in the country. This was after the Sanral board declined to approve the awarding of these tenders, worth around R17 billion, in May 2022 – as a result of lapses in the due process. In response to this, Minister Mbalula explained that the board was bound by its fiduciary duties which, amongst others, enjoin it to act with fidelity, honesty, integrity and in the best interest of the company at all times. He said turning a blind eye to what would have resulted in irregular expenditure and possible litigation, would have held up some of these projects in courts for years.

As part of Transport Month, Memeza says the agency is proud of the many projects that have been completed during the course of the year, adding that other projects are progressing well and it is hoped they will be completed in record time.

“We have several projects

under construction, including the N2 Wild Coast Road (N2WCR) in the Eastern Cape, the N2/N3 upgrades in KwaZulu-Natal, and the Moloto Road (R573), which runs through three of South Africa’s northern inland provinces – Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.”

The latter was incorporated into Sanral’s network of roads in 2015.

The N2WCR project contains two of the biggest bridges ever to be built on the African continent.

“One of the projects that we completed recently was the upgrading of the lighting in the Huguenot Tunnel in the Western Cape, which necessitated extensive engagement with various stakeholders, to ensure that they planned their travel accordingly,” she says.

Good governance

Presiding over multi-billion tenders comes with significant pressure but, with the government having declared war on corruption, Memeza is determined to provide good governance at all times. As a manager, she is committed to raising awareness on what constitutes good governance and what it means to Sanral projects.

She acknowledges that ineffective governance has compromised the ability of many state-owned enterprises to deliver on their core mandates, but says Sanral always upholds and enforces proper governance when awarding tenders. She explains that projects over R500 million are subjected to a proactive assurance review by both Sanral’s internal audit and legal departments. Anything above R750 million is further scrutinised, at board level, to ensure compliance at every step of the procurement process, she says.

“As a state-owned entity, it is of utmost importance that we ensure compliance in all of our procurement processes to uphold applicable fiduciary duties. Sanral is enjoined by Section 51 of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (Act 1 of 1999) to ensure that it maintains effective, efficient and transparent systems of financial and risk management and internal control.

“I am glad that the formation of Sanral had engineers as leaders, but taking it forward, you need somebody with a good understanding of governance, a good understanding of people, to be able to implement and run with what has already been set as parameters,” she says.

“As a state-owned entity, it is of utmost importance that we ensure compliance in all of our procurement processes to uphold applicable fiduciary duties.”

Horizon 2030

Despite its successes, Memeza says she is mindful of the challenges that impede Sanral’s progress in fully meeting its mandate. The agency is guided by its longterm strategy – Horizon 2030, but she says more progress is needed in some areas, including transformation.

“We have brilliant documents governing transformation, but if you look at the actual implementation, we can do better. We are currently revising our proforma documents to ensure that we accelerate the achievements of our transformation objectives, especially for construction and consulting engineering. We are also rolling out our nationwide training plans for small medium and micro enterprisess and have supplier development desks in all our regions to assist,” she says.

To advance its Horizons 2030 progress, Memeza says the agency is finalising a procurement turnaround strategy to deal with backlogs and delays.