SANRAL to receive R31 billion to address ailing road network

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13-05-2026
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South African motorists have to contend with a lot. After rising fuel costs and endless hours of traffic, the state of the roads themselves are in need of dire attention, especially in cities like Johannesburg, where potholes are some large and numerous they do untold damage to vehicles.

Aiming to address this and other issues is the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL), which this week outlined how much money it will be spending in efforts to maintain, rehabilitate, upgrade and expand the road network across the country.

More specifically, SANRAL is expecting to receive R31 billion.

Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, unpacked what the money would be put towards during a briefing in Parliament, earlier this week.

“These funds will be used for capital expenditure on the non-toll network, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement project operations; the N2 Wild Coast route for ongoing construction on major bridges, and new road sections on our national highways as well as the development of the Moloto Road corridor,” the minister explained.

The R31 billion is part of a far larger R102 billion that the Department of Transport has been allocated, per the Budget Vote. The larger figure is aimed at building a more “competitive” transport system that serves commuters, the minister pointed out, with a renewed emphasis on freight operators and export industries, too.

Creecy said the infrastructure projects are expected to create more than 35 000 job opportunities, while also supporting over 2 000 SMEs, which as we saw from yesterday’s unemployment statistics, is a critical consideration for any endeavour government enacts moving forward.

While the R31 billion is a sizeable amount, especially for a financial year, Creecy did not shy away from the fact that SANRAL is still under-funded in terms of the infrastructure it needs to maintain.

“Since 2013, provincial governments have transferred 13 000 kilometres of provincial roads to SANRAL for management and maintenance. This is not a sustainable long-term strategy and will ultimately impact SANRAL’s ability to maintain the National Road Network without introducing widespread tolling,” the minister said.

To tackle this, Creecy noted that government plans to convene a joint meeting between the National Treasury and the Department of Transport, through the Minister and MECs (MINMEC) forum, to explore new mechanisms around the Provincial Road Maintenance Grant. This is expected to assist in enabling provinces to better handle upgrades to priority roads with greater speed.

Creecy ended her briefing by stressing the importance of improving the state of South Africa’s roads, particularly when to comes to making them safer to travel on. “We wish to emphasise today that road safety is a national crisis. Last year, South Africa lost over 11 418 lives on our roads, one of the worst rates globally,” the minister concluded.