State-owned roads operator, the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) will start the process to appoint a new CEO to succeed Nazir Alli, who will retire in August.

Sanral chairperson Roshan Morar noted that Alli’s exact departure date would be determined by the Minister of Transport, in consultation with Sanral’s board, subsequent to the appointment of the new CEO and a hand-over period.

Sanral was seeking to appoint a visionary leader, who was also a qualified civil engineer, in the position.

“This person must have extensive experience at senior management level accompanied by a solid record of leading a similar or similar-sized organisation. He or she must be a person of influence, who will be charged with developing a tactical plan to advance the company’s mission, vision and objectives,” the roads agency noted.

Morar said it would be a challenge to replace someone of Alli’s stature, but added that, “we would like him to enjoy spending time with his family after his selfless service to our country”.

Alli had been at the helm of Sanral since its inception in 1998.

Under his leadership, Sanral grew from managing a road network of 7 200 km in 1998 to 21 403 km. This was expected to grow to 35 000 km in the future.

The roads and other related infrastructure that had been built by Sanral under Alli’s auspices were of “outstanding quality and have won numerous global awards in engineering excellence”, the agency stated.

“Alli has run the agency in a prudent and ethical manner with unqualified audit reports for longer than a decade. His commitment to the country’s socioeconomic transformational agenda ensured that educational institutions [trained] the next generation of engineers through an extensive programme of scholarships, bursaries and internships, in order to reflect the demographic reality of the country,” Morar added.

Through Alli’s active guidance, the roads agency had launched and sponsored chairs at three universities with the most recent being a chair in science, mathematics and technology education at the University of the Free State.

A chair in transportation planning and engineering was established at the University of Cape Town in 2013 with an endowment from Sanral.

Further, through its sponsorship of a chair in pavement engineering at the Stellenbosch University, the roads agency had made a substantial contribution to research that addressed the needs of the country’s road industry and the training of the next generation of engineers.