Road body will look for alternative funding

PUBLIC-PRIVATE partnerships are to be promoted by the department of transport's new National Roads Agency (NRA) to develop methods of financing roadways, both primary and secondary in the country.
In announcing the new agency, the department has made it clear that it is tasked with much the same functions as are presently undertaken by the chief directorate of roads, but will focus its efforts on establishing alternative sources of funding for roads.
This it will do by promoting the concept of user charging, the creation of infrastructure through the mobilisation of private sector funding and the use of innovative methods of contract wherein public-private partnerships will be promoted.
In the initial stages, it expects to take over certain major routes which are currently not national roads, but which serve in a strategic sense, the broader interests of economy. As the inadequate funding for these routes is unlikely to be resolved in the short term by any other means, many will be transformed into toll roads, under a variety of possible funding methods once they have been upgraded.
Work will be performed within an environment of a currently good rural road network in South Africa which, says the department, is showing signs of rapid deterioration in its ability to handle the increasing demands made of it.
The agency will outsource most of its work. Its relationship with the private sector will change markedly, says the department, as the ultimate responsibility for the work done by the private sector will be made to lie squarely on their shoulders.
Finances of the agency will come from capital invested or lent to them, levies on petrol and distillate fuels, loans granted to or raised by the agency, as well as income from various sources such as toll charges, fines and penalties, sales of assets and investments.
The agency's chairperson will be Barry Adams, with Nazir Alli c.e.o. Committee members are Lot Ndlovu, Otfrid Bornheimer, Thozamile Botha and Khehla Shubane.