The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) is engaging local businesspeople in Mkhondo, Mpumalanga, on business opportunities available as the N2 road between Ermelo and KwaZulu-Natal is due for upgrades.
The project will stretch about 150 kilometres and will cost SANRAL over R12-billion in the next five years.
The N2 road has been a cause for many road crashes due to the high traffic volumes due to trucks transporting coal from Mpumalanga to Richards Bay.
The local communities in Mkhondo have welcomed this engagement.
“The potholes were too much from this side Ermelo to Piet Retief . We had been struggling when you are driving your car with 19-inch wheels. People also prefer from Ermelo via Amsterdam to reach Piet Retief because that one was already fixed.
“Thanks to SANRAL for coming to Mkhondo to give the opportunity to embrace small business, we are very thankful for SANRAL to give us this opportunity.”
Meanwhile, SANRAL says the project will be implemented in phases for the next five years until completion.
The road agency says engagements with local businesspeople is to give them information to avoid unnecessary disruptions when the project is being implemented.
SANRAL’s Regional Manager Progess Hlahla, “We are preparing now for significantly upgrade the entire N2 Corridor from Ermelo to the border of KZN province, this is about 150 km long in terms of the stretch and we will be spending between eleven and twelve billion rand in the next couple of years to upgrade this road. We are already at evaluation stage on some of the tenders and we are saying interims of the estimate that we have with this project, we are looking at around two and half per package and we have about five packages.”
