The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) expects to spend more than R50-billion fixing and maintaining South Africa’s national road infrastructure.
In the midst of last week’s budget speech, Sanral appeared before the Select Committee on Public Infrastructure, and the Minister in the Presidency presented its 2024/25 Annual Report and 2025/26 Mid-Year Performance Monitoring Report.
During the briefing, it also outlined the state of the country’s roads and the work being done to rectify poor road infrastructure.
The agency’s CFO, Pretty Makukule, told the committee that the entity saw a decline in both revenue and expenditure over the last financial year, 13% and 9% respectively.
Makukule blamed the scrapping of the eTol system for the agency’s lower reported revenue.
Revenue fell to R39.27 billion, while expenditure was R29.35 billion. Sanral did, however, manage to grow its total assets by 14% to R831 billion.
For the year under review, the Roads Agency spent R2.9 billion on South Africa’s toll roads, including R2.6 billion on maintenance.
On non-toll roads, Sanral spent R32 billion, with R18 billion going towards capital projects, and R14 billion spent on road maintenance.
“This comprises 90% of our total road network, and these are funded by the fiscals,” Makukule explained.
By the end of the last financial year, 45% of South Africa’s roads were in fair condition, 27% were in good condition, and only 5% were in very good condition. 13% of national roads are in poor condition, with no data for 10%.
To rectify this situation, Sanral has allocated R9.4 billion to toll roads, forecasting a spend of R8.8 billion by the end of the 2025/26 financial year. Additionally, the agency budgeted R49 billion to non-toll roads.
Makukule explained that the entity has seen its budget cut by R5 billion during the current financial year.
“We also received another letter from the [Transport] department about further cuts of around R1.9 billion in the very same budget,” she said.
“We are discussing these cuts as management, and are going through a process of analysing our projects at different phases, and planning to embark on a reprioritisation exercise.”
Major projects being completed
During the Budget Speech, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced that Sanral will focus on strengthening long-term network resilience.
This includes the maintenance of South Africa’s approximately 27,000km road network, as well as the resurfacing of 2,000km of roads.
Several flagship projects are already underway, including the R28-billion N2 Wild Coast Road project, which includes two megabridges: the Msikaba Bridge and the Mtentu Bridge.
This project has been hailed as South Africa’s most ambitious, with the two megabridges alone expected to cost R5.8 billion.
Another ambitious road project for Sanral is the completion of section 3 of the R573 Moloto Road, which traverses Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo.
A budget of R11.5 billion has been set aside for the project, which aims to improve road safety and connectivity for road users in the area.
South Africa’s longest tunnel, the Huguenot Tunnel in the Western Cape, is also receiving upgrades of R6.5 billion.
This represents a strategically important project for Sanral, as the road connects the ports of Cape Town and Saldanha to inland provinces, and carries up to 25,000 vehicles daily.
Projects like the Musina Ring Road in Limpopo, and upgrades to the N2 and N3 in KwaZulu-Natal are also expected to add several billions of rands to Sanral’s spend over the next few years.
Loading ...
