New BEE laws proposed for petrol stations on South Africa’s national roads

The business group Sakeliga has warned that the South African National Roads Agency’s (SANRAL’s) new draft proposals will impose new broad black economic empowerment (BEE) requirements for petrol stations and other roadside businesses.

These concerns relate to SANRAL’s Draft Policy for Rest and Service Facilities along National Roads, which Sakeliga says could unlawfully expand the agency’s powers over private businesses.

The policy aims to regulate developments such as petrol stations, truck stops, restaurants, convenience stores, and future infrastructure linked to electric vehicles and alternative fuels.

Sakeliga argued that SANRAL is attempting to use its authority over South Africa’s national roads to control businesses operating on private land.

The group objected to the draft policy, saying that it would give SANRAL sweeping powers to dictate who can operate a business along a national road, setting transformation credential requirements, imposing levies, and mandating how the business must be structured.

This would be the case even if the business operates on privately owned land and has no contractual relationship with SANRAL.

According to Sakeliga, the agency is relying on sections of the SANRAL Act that were intended to regulate access to national roads for road safety and traffic purposes.

The business group said that SANRAL is now trying to use these provisions to introduce much broader commercial and socio-economic regulations.

“The road agency’s authority, as defined by the SANRAL Act, is restricted to the planning, financing, construction, operation, management, and maintenance of national roads,” Sakeliga said.

“SANRAL is not an economic regulator, a licensing authority for private businesses, or empowered to impose transformation requirements on private landowners.”

Sakeliga highlighted that the draft policy would require roadside businesses to comply with SANRAL’s own Transformation Policy.

It argued that the policy was originally meant for companies contracted by SANRAL for road construction and maintenance.

“The Draft Policy now requires private businesses on private land to comply with the same framework, even though they are not contracting with SANRAL, are not spending public money, and are not supplying any product or service to SANRAL,” it said.

New barrier to access South Africa’s road network

Sakeliga warned that this policy would effectively create a parallel BEE compliance regime for private businesses by making transformation requirements a condition for access to the national road network.

The group argued that this could have severe economic consequences for South Africa, as it would create barriers to entry through centralised approvals and spacing rules.

It would also reduce competition by protecting existing operators and raise costs through turnover-based levies of up to 10%.

The policy could also discourage investment by creating regulatory uncertainty, discretionary approval processes, and short lease periods.

“Private businesses operating on private land should not be required to surrender ownership, restructure their operations, or demonstrate transformation credentials to a roads agency,” Sakeliga said.

The group stated it would challenge the policy if adopted in its current form or in any similar form.