Civil Engineering May 2022 | Vol 30 No 4

50 May 2022 Civil Engineering administration and traffic monitoring activities. It did however maintain and manage three major concessions, forming major sections of the national road network, previously managed by the private sector. The management structure adopted was a flat, matrix type where project managers in the four regions – central, south, north and east – managed all aspects of specific national road projects. This approach contrasts with the ‘typical’ road authority approach where specific areas of road engineering, such as planning, design (geometric, traffic, pavement or structural), construction and maintenance form the basis of the subdivision of management responsibilities, and engineers are in a position to develop their expertise in appropriate areas. Initially this matrix approach appeared successful in that the high quality of the national road network was maintained; perhaps due to the fact that in the early days most engineering personnel were experienced ex-CDNR professionals with appropriate exper- tise. However, as time went by and original staff retired and were replaced, the author and ‘outside’ engineers perceived a falling off of road engineering professional expertise by these project managers. It would however appear that this point has been recognised within SANRAL and consideration has recently been given to adjusting the management structure to the more common one for road authorities which facilitates technological skills development of personnel within the specific engineering field of endeavour. SANRAL’s performance is required to be regularly monitored by the NDoT, an organisation in which, in the words of a Public Service Commission (PSC) report, “there is a near vacuum of capacity”. Apart from the inability of NDoT to carry out its function, the situation has unfortunately, inter alia, negatively impacted on strategic planning for the national road network and technological development in the roads sector – functions which should be carried out by the NDoT. The first monitoring evaluation of service delivery by agen- cies reporting to the minister of transport was carried out by the PSC early in the new century. In respect of SANRAL, the conclusion was that while service delivery was sound, the chain of relationships between the minister, his department, the board, and the CEO was dysfunctional, and that “contact was found to be directly between the CEO and the Minister, with the board and the NDoT to a large extent being left out of the chain.” Perhaps this was, to a large extent, the result of, and using the words of the PSC report, “a near vacuum of capacity in the NDoT” and “inadequate expertise” by most board members regarding professional and technical aspects of the activity of the agency. WHERE TO NEXT? Despite these administrative problems, the national road network has remained in sound condition for the past 20 or so years, both in the eyes of the public and the engineering profession, as well as by regular assessments using accepted performance indicators. To the author this is the result of the efforts of some very competent professional engineers in the employ of the agency. However, as those professionals become older and retire, the question arises as to whether this competence will be retained, especially given the matrix structure currently used within SANRAL, where per- sonnel are not exposed to the latest developments in their specific field of road engineering. A matter of concern is the fact that, because of the inability of some provinces to properly maintain their provincial road networks, SANRAL has expanded its activities to embrace con- siderable lengths of these poor provincial roads into its network. While there might be sound socio-political reasons for this action, many of these road sections do not fit the definition of a country’s primary road network as they are merely intra-regional roads. This decision is not in consonance with world practice and most definitely not in line with the definition of national roads expounded some 90 years ago and maintained for the greater part of this period. Does this signal, because of the inabilities of most provinces, a change in SANRAL’s role from being a national road authority to being just one of many general road authorities? This matter requires consideration and perhaps debate, including the extent to which an increase in ‘road concessioning’ is desirable.  The Gouritz River Bridge on the N2