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The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has detailed the main road infrastructure projects it is working on across the country.
In a presentation to parliament this week, the agency said its main mandate is to manage and control the country’s national road network and take charge of its development, maintenance and rehabilitation.
“The country’s 22,000 km road network is described in the National Development Plan as the country’s greatest public asset and is critical to South Africa’s future economic and social trajectory,” the agency said.
As part of this mandate, the agency said it is currently developing a series of “flagship” socio-economic projects that will see improvements on some of the country’s main highways and highways.
The wild coast N2 and new bridges
The N2 Wild Coast Road, which stretches 410 km from Gonubie Interchange in East London to the Mtamvuna River near Port Edward, will shorten the current distance by 85 km compared to the current route.
This will save travel time of between one and a half to three hours for road users once it is completed, saving the economy R 1.5 billion annually.
The project will see the construction of two mega-bridge structures on the Msikaba and Mtentu rivers, seven additional major river bridges, and several interchange bridges, as well as new intersections, interchanges, pedestrian walkways, and agricultural and overpasses.
Sanral said that as part of the N2 development, the Msikaba bridge project is currently underway, while the N2 Mtentu bridge project is being “resubmitted”.
He added that new road section design projects are being carried out and that construction project tenders are scheduled for the next six months.
The Msikaba Bridge will become one of the longest span crossings ever built on the African continent, with a tower-to-tower distance of 580 meters. The new cable-stayed bridge will also become one of the tallest bridges in Africa with a 194 meter high deck.
Construction was scheduled to begin in February 2019 but it was marred by protests and community delays.
The N3 Van Reenen and other KZN updates
The N3 Van Reenen was named as one of the new Strategic Integrated Projects (SIP) published by the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Patricia de Lille in July.
It is part of a series of other planned updates to KZN, including a revamp of the existing parts of N2 and N3.
In a briefing last week, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said that these improvements will mainly focus on expanding existing routes to better cope with the flow of traffic.
The N2 redevelopment will focus on a 55 km stretch from the Lovu river on the south coast to Umdloti on the north coast, while the N3 will have a 80 km section from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, he said.
“These improvements will include the widening of the N2 and N3 roads, with four or five lanes in each direction, and the reconfiguration of most of the major interchanges along these road sections,” said Mbalula.
The Transport Minister said that the construction costs for these improvements are estimated at approximately R10 billion for N2 and R18.4 billion for N3. It is estimated that the combined projects will take up to 10 years to complete.
N1 / N2 / R300 in Cape Town
Sanral said it has issued tenders for “engineering design consulting services” to upgrade to the N1, N2 and R300 in the Western Cape.
However, the agency said the funding is a “serious restriction” and did not provide further details on the schedule or construction.
GFIP Phases 2 and 3
These funding constraints are also deeply felt in Gauteng, where the Gauteng Highway Improvement Project (GFIP) has been badly affected, the agency said.
While phase 1 of the GFIP in 2008 saw the implementation of improvements to the province’s highways, Sanral now deeply feels the failure of the electronic toll project.
The agency said any future projects now will depend on the outcome with the current GFIP electronic toll issue.
The uncertainty surrounding electronic tolls has resulted in poor payment compliance, which has negatively affected the agency’s ability to finance its toll portfolio in the short term, he said. This has resulted in a reduced budget for new projects across its entire portfolio, and not just in Gauteng.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says his department is being prevented to implement new road infrastructure projects due to the lack of resolution around electronic tolls in Gauteng.
In early October, the minister said that President Cyril Ramamphosa’s cabinet is ready to finalize a new financing model for the project after receiving proposals from his department.
Mbalula admitted that he thought the issue would have been resolved by now, but that the process has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Now that we are reducing the blockade to level 1, we are prepared to accelerate the deployment of infrastructure projects and also to solve the problem of electronic tolls,” he said.
In September, South Africa’s National Highway Agency Limited (Sanral) said the government should decide urgently on the future of electronic tolls in Gauteng province as the coronavirus slashes its cash flow.
“We have to run to ensure our liquidity,” Sanral CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma told the Sunday Times.
Macozoma said that the decision to keep the system or eliminate it rests with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet. Only about 20% of users pay electronic tolls, the Sunday Times reported.
If canceled, Sanral’s debt related to the Gauteng Highway Improvement Project will increase from around R40 billion to R67 billion. The blockade of South Africa to curb the coronavirus cost Sanral more than R620 million.
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