The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has announced that progress has been made on routine road maintenance (RRM) projects across Gauteng’s three metropolitan areas of Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane.

Sanral has appointed the Ndodana/Oarona joint venture as the consulting engineers and VEA Road Maintenance and Civils as the main contractor across all three metros, with the tenders for subcontractors to be put out within the next six months.

This work follows several Taking Sanral to the People stakeholder engagement sessions that Sanral hosted in Gauteng during 2020. These engagements were targeted at local small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs), as well as local communities, to showcase available opportunities on upcoming Sanral projects and how they can get involved.

Sanral has four RRM contracts within Gauteng. One of the projects got under way in November 2020, and the other three in December 2020.

The contracts will run for a period of 36 months until October 31, 2023, and November 30, 2023, respectively.

Thereafter, new RRM contracts will be put in place.

VEA will be responsible for developing and issuing the tender packages that will be made available to subcontracting opportunities where local SMMEs can submit their business profiles for consideration.

Currently, it is anticipated that 18 to 22 subcontractor packages will be put out to tender per contract.

During the period of the contract, various training programmes by accredited trainers will be done with the subcontractors. An appointed mentor will be available on site to assist subcontractors and keep a record of performance.

The first contract is in the Tshwane metropolitan area. The total road network in Tshwane is about 185 km and will include N4 Sections 1, 11 and 12; and N1 Section 21.

RRM will also be conducted on R21 Section 2, R104 Section 1 and 2, and the R573 Section 1, which is commonly known as Moloto road.

The second contract is in the Johannesburg metropolitan area and will result in various national routes undergoing maintenance work. That includes N1 Sections 19 and 20, N3 Section 12, N12 Section 18 and the N17 Sections 1 and 2. This will bring the total road network to about 110 km.

The third contract falls under the Ekurhuleni metropolitan area, where Sanral maintains about 215 km of road. National routes that are currently being worked on include the R21 Sections 1 and 2, N12 Sections 18 and 19, N3 Sections 11 and 12 and the N17 Section 2.

The fourth contract falls under the Merafong municipality within the West Rand district municipality, where Sanral maintains about 151.3 km of road. National routes that are currently being worked on include the N12 Section 17, R500 Section 1, R54 Section 1, R501 Section 3 and N14 Section 13.