The South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) has noted with concern the reports that one of its employees has been arrested by the South African Police Service in an alleged heist which took place on Wednesday on the R40 near Hazyview in Mpumalanga.

SANRAL would like to clarify that none of its employees have been arrested by the police in connection with the alleged heist. SANRAL further states that none of its employees are directly responsible for cleaning national roads. In terms of SANRAL’s business model, the cleaning of roads is handled by contractors through the Routine Road Maintenance (RMM) contracts.  

Considering this report, SANRAL would like to confirm that indeed one of the employees of VEA Construction, the main contractor responsible for road maintenance, was detained following a misunderstanding with the police. The said employee was sent out to assist in clearing the scene as would normally happen with any accident on the routes a contractor patrols. 

Upon their arrival at the scene, the contractor’s employees found the police had barricaded the scene for investigation. Once the forensics team and the fire department had concluded their work, they instructed the team to proceed with the clean-up. The clean-up is required to get the operations of the road back on track such that traffic movement is not impeded.

The misunderstanding and arrest happened when a second team of police officers found the member cleaning the scene. During the arrest, the said individual identified himself as a SANRAL employee, as opposed to mentioning the contractor’s company.

We can further confirm that the misunderstanding has been resolved and the individual was released on Thursday.

The criminal justice system is entrusted with dealing with such issues and, as such, SANRAL will not be commenting further on the matter.

 

Issued by SANRAL General Manager of Communications Vusi Mona