An increase to Sanral’s network may put pressure on the road agency’s budget.

Limpopo will ask Sanral to take more than 1 600km of road off of the province’s books. The roads will be incorporated into Sanral’s network in April, extending the road agency’s network to 21 332km ‒ 16% of which is tolled.

The roads are in poor condition and Sanral is expected to reverse decades of underinvestment in maintenance and repair.

The worst roads are in the Free State, where the percentage of roads in poor condition increased from 6% in 2009 to 70% in 2012. According to a logistics survey, the need to transport bulk commodities on provincial roads in the Free State coupled with the absence of maintenance, most likely led to the level of deterioration.

Kannemeyer says Sanral has to spend up to R210 000 per km per yearto rehabilitate incorporated roads, two or three times more than the cost of maintaining its primary network.

Sanral road network manager Louw Kannemeyer says Sanral’snontoll-road budget is adjusted annually by the Treasury, but the increase is disproportionate to the rise in its network. In 2012-13 the budget rose by 8.7%, against a 27% increase in the network. The 2014-15 budget is set to rise by 8.9%, a few percentage points above inflation rate.