Bumpy journey to replace Nazir Alli

There’s no little irony in the fact that government is having a problem finding a replacement for Nazir Alli, the CEO of the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral). As it stands, Sanral is perhaps the best-run state-owned company, even if the bar seems especially low.

Sanral has had none of the governance chaos that has plagued SA Airways, where it seems every executive is “acting”.

The roads agency is also a country mile better than the SABC, where the chief operating officer seems to have considerably more power than any of the eight CEOs to have served since 2009.

Yet Alli’s contract at Sanral has been extended four times. You’d have to believe that there were no suitable candidates sticking their hands up to be picked.

It will undoubtedly be tough to replace him — even if Alli didn’t always play the game as diplomatically as you’d expect from someone in such a politically charged job.

He is, after all, an engineer, who, like many of his peers, does not suffer laymen gladly and gets impatient with what he regards as distractions from the core work. Still, he presided over an efficient organisation which, amid a sea of state-owned mediocrity, has managed to achieve successive unqualified audits.

But all potential candidates will know that Alli’s job is perhaps one of the most thankless in the country. And the reason for this is clear as day: politics.

Sure, Sanral has made misjudgments over the level of toll tariffs and errors in billing. But that hasn’t been Sanral’s real weakness — rather, the political wrangling over e-tolls has been the main problem.

Of course nobody wants to pay tolls — especially if, as is the case with Gauteng’s freeways, the authorities have abandoned the principle that a non-charging alternative road should always be available.

But when government bungled the e-toll process, it hung Alli out to dry — the fall guy for its ham-fisted process.

Sanral did, in fact, hop through many of the bureaucratic hoops when it came to e-tolls, but little effort was made to publicise the project and its implications for everyday South Africans.

The fact is that political approval for freeway tolling was granted by an ANC administration in Gauteng that predated the Zuma era. This conveniently allowed its successor (the ANC administration under David Makhura) to join the chorus of objections when the implications became clear.

After it got over its initial schizophrenia, government responded to the e-tolls protests with concessions. Taxis were exempted from tolls, and tariffs that were undoubtedly punitive for the average regular road-user were slashed, twice.

Still, the impression lingered that government wanted Sanral to take the political heat from fires that had actually been stoked by the politicians.

Eventually, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa defused the issue, but it left a bad taste in the mouths of many at Sanral, who felt they, too, might be hung out to dry again, should it prove convenient for its political masters. And, since there’s always an election of some kind around the corner, this is an ever-present threat.

Any potential successor to Alli will be all too aware of these dynamics. Even Alli’s detractors will admit that he’ll leave big shoes to fill. Part of the problem in filling the post is that the number of people who could do the job is very small — and that’s before you even ask if they’d want to.

Consider that the ideal candidate would be someone with an engineering and road construction background, the experience to navigate the world of high finance in areas like bond issues, and a skin thick enough to absorb the fickle political wrangling you’re inevitably subjected to in that post.

Sanral spokesman Vusi Mona said this week that interviews for a new CEO had been conducted and a short list had been compiled. To make it more tricky, the department of transport must also “consult with structures, including the cabinet”.

Fingers crossed that the search produces candidates based entirely on competence, and that it isn’t prolonged by attempts to placate the internal ANC patronage networks that usually inform senior appointments at state companies.