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46
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
JUNE
2016
ROADS AND BRIDGES
What is the focus of the Roads
Division?
The Roads Division has, historically, always
been a strong part of Basil Read’s business.
We see ourselves as the premier road builder
in the country and we strive to provide a level
of quality that sets us apart.
We have predominantly focused on larger
national and international clients. Our main
client locally is the South African National
Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) – we work
on its concession routes and national routes
– as well as the provincial routes that it
increasingly manages. We also want to focus
on private concessionaires and also larger
municipalities – it is a market that we are
looking at entering. We are generally not
involved in smaller municipal road construc-
tion projects – unless it is linked to other work
that Basil Read is undertaking. The company
has a Developments Division that develops
projects such as Cosmo City, Malibongwe
Ridge and Savannah City and where our
capacity and skills to construct road networks
and civil services is utilised.
The Basil Read Roads Division is increas-
ingly becoming a transportation division
servicing all transportation infrastructure
requirements. The recently completed
St Helena Airport is an example of this: the
Roads Division supplied many of the expertise
and capacity of the multi-disciplinary project
team that developed and built the airport.
There are many synergies between doing
mass earthworks for an airport, port or
railway and roadworks.
How big is the division?
At the moment its annual revenue is between
R1,3-R1,5-billion. It undertakes between six
to eight large projects (R500-million plus
projects) at any given time. This represents
about a third of Basil Read’s total revenue.
It has 50 dedicated senior managers and
approximately 1 700 to 1 800 people on site.
Do you do work in Southern
Africa? What are the difficulties?
We do yes, but these projects are client,
funding and competition dependent. We have
completed a number of projects in Namibia,
but this market is currently flooded with inter-
national contractors.
We have offices and some minor operations
in Mozambique and Botswana. As we focus
on larger roads and earthworks projects,
the work we do cross-border is linked to the
national imperative of providing transporta-
tion links or large infrastructure development.
At the moment road building in Mozambique
is linked to the development of the major gas
fields in the North of the country. These gas
fields are not progressing at the anticipated
speed due to various reasons and thus there
is less road building and earthworks projects
being undertaken than anticipated.
It is a logistical challenge to work cross
border. In general, African border control is
Towards a
TRANSPORTATION
division
Basil Read’s Roads Division executive officer, Bruce Morton,
spoke to
Wilhelm du Plessis
about how the Roads Division is
increasingly becoming a transportation division, capable of
servicing the needs of its clients.
The Roads Division’s work at Coega illustrates that it is moving from a roads only to a more transport orientated division.
Basil Read’s Roads Division executive officer,
Bruce Morton.