The South African National Road Agency Limited (SANRAL) has informed communities within the Makhado Local Municipality about several upcoming projects on the N1 that have been scheduled for 2024, which will provide subcontracting opportunities for small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs). This was during an engagement session that was held at the Makhado Show Grounds on Friday, 20 October. The budgeted cost for all these projects amounts to around R6-billion.
The engagement session was attended by people living with disabilities, military veterans, and women and youths who run SMMEs in the Makhado Municipality.
SANRAL said they would soon be enrolling people for information and training sessions to prepare interested SMMEs who would be competing in the tender process.
Residents who run SMMEs in the area had several questions, such as why SANRAL usually offered tenders to the white community, why SANRAL did not rehabilitate the roads that connected communities to the N1, why main contractors subcontracted SMMEs from outside Makhado Municipality, and any training of SMMEs would be done before tenders were out.
SANRAL informed SMMEs that, regarding tenders, they had an open-door policy where everyone was allowed to bid. Regarding some of the other questions, SANRAL encouraged SMMEs to take part in the upcoming information sessions as they would be assisted to bid for tenders.