Big construction companies must share tenders with smaller industry players, says South African National Roads Agency

It is time for South Africa’s biggest construction companies to “share” with small and medium-sized industry players, says South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) chair Themba Mhambi.

Speaking at an event in Cape Town on Friday evening, Mhambi said court action over the agency’s new tender scoring system by major construction companies will not deter Sanral from pursuing real transformation of the sector.

“We are going to damage Sanral if we destroy the big construction companies such as WBHO, Murray & Roberts, Haw and Inglis and so on. If we destroy them we will be destroying Sanral and South Africa. Therefore don’t believe the lies that we want to kill these construction companies.

“We don’t want to do that. We want to support them, we want to strengthen them to get more business but there is one condition. That condition is that they must understand that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white,” said Mhambi.

He stressed it is time for black South Africans — Africans, Indians and coloureds — who had previously been excluded from benefitting from massive infrastructure projects to benefit alongside the well-established industry players.

“Those people who have in the past been excluded from benefitting from road construction, bridge building, pavements, manufacturing of guard rails, the production of asphalt, those who have been excluded from benefitting from all those things must now benefit as well. That is the condition. That condition does not come from anywhere other than the Constitution.”

Mhambi’s remarks come after some of the country’s biggest construction companies sought court interdicts against Sanral to stop new construction tenders being issued using the roads agency’s new Preferential Procurement Policy (PPP), which requires big companies to share significant portions of the work with smaller players.

“When these millionaire and billionaire companies say to us ‘we are going to take you to court because you are depriving us of the millions and billions we are making alone’, I understand what they are saying because you can’t be a millionaire or billionaire by sharing. They are going to resist sharing.”