Sanral ‘recognises’ problem of wasting billions

The SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has taken “cognisance” of procurement deficiencies amounting to billions of rands that “may exist”.

Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) strongly criticised Sanral this week for “deliberately” wasting taxpayers’ money through irregular and fruitless expenditure incurred through its projects.

Scopa said Sanral ignored National Treasury and the Public Finance Management Act which “resulted in their finances being in a bad state”. It warned Sanral could cripple itself.

Outgoing board chair Roshan Morar said Sanral wished to “put on record that it remained 100% committed to operating within the legislative prescripts”.

“Some of the irregular expenditure is a rollover from 2015, such as routine road maintenance (RRM) contracts – these contracts are in effect on all of its network.

“Contracts are a great incubator of small, medium and micro enterprises and in line with Sanral’s policy of ensuring that a significant amount of work is awarded to them. RRM contracts are awarded for three years and renewable for two years.”

For the financial year 2016-17, Sanral’s irregular expenditure amounted to a whopping R10 billion. Another R15 million was attributed to fruitless expense. These are “huge amounts” which concerned Scopa “because taxpayers’ money should not be wasted in such a manner”.

Scopa was also concerned by unsolicited bids that bind Sanral to compensate suppliers if projects fail, such as the N1/N2 tollgate which cost the entity R15 million. This amounts to wasteful and fruitless expenditure.

Sanral CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma said the entity “recognised the problem of irregular, fruitless, wasteful expenditure”.

“As such, we have already embarked on interventions to improve compliance, strengthen the institution and prevent noncompliance in supply chain management processes.”

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