Civil Engineering May 2022 | Vol 30 No 4

Civil Engineering May 2022 45 BACKGROUND F rom the 1920s onwards, the ‘new’ transportation develop- ment (i.e. the road motor vehicle) rapidly increased in numbers in South Africa, leading to the need for improve- ments to the country’s early ox-wagon roads and tracks. For strongly political reasons, the primary inter-city roads between South Africa’s cities and towns were provided by the provincial road authorities up to 1972, although funded by central government and monitored by their ‘Inspecting Engineers’. For various reasons this was not a satisfactory arrangement. Consequently, in 1972, the function of implementing the primary inter-city road network was allocated to central government. Over the past 50 years, the institutional arrangement for providing these roads has basically been of two types. For the first Op i n i on Dr MalcolmMitchell Pr Eng, FSAICE Retired Deputy Director-General of Transport malcolm3511@gmail.com Where are we going with the management of the country’s primary road network ? South Africa’s national road network has served the country well for the past eight or so decades. During this period the responsibility for the provision of the network has been shared, initially by the provinces, and for the past 50 years by a central government road authority. Will the socio-economic need for SANRAL to assist poorly managed provincial road authorities dilute its primary aim, namely the provision of a sound and efficient national road system? The original National Road Scheme