The Board’s View
OUR NEXT GOAL, THE CLEAN AUDIT OPINION, NEEDS ALL HANDS ON DECK
The past three financial years have been a daunting period for Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL). Taking over the reins at RAL has been one of the fulfilling roles for the Board of Directors under my leadership. Our immediate challenge was to create an enabling institutional environment that promotes the efficient, accountable and transparent use of all resources deployed by the government and other partners to advance the achievement of RAL’s core business objectives.
This, however, has come at a heavy price. The Board had to take unfavourable decisions to turnaround the negative situation within the organisation and ensure that proper governance becomes the order of the day. Our goal was, mainly, to see RAL playing a more active role in ensuring that our road network become the chief facilitator of fresh investments and rapid economic growth, and on the other hand create the much need jobs for the province of Limpopo.
The delight in the recent completion of one of our flagship projects, the 23-kilometre road D1392, from Ga-Malekane to Ga-Mampuru to Ga- Phasha to Tukakgomo to Ga-Mahlakwena cannot be over emphasised.
Added to this project, we will be officially handing over to our valued communities in the form of launches, a considerable number of other completed projects between October 2018 and December 2018. Since RAL was effectively returned from section 100 administration in early 2014, and the Board of Directors was subsequently appointed in April 2014, in total the Agency has completed 70 projects. The current board was appointed in February 2018.
This achievement could not have been realised without the support of management and staff, the Shareholder Representative and more importantly the people we serve, the Limpopo communities. We really appreciate their support.
Going forward, the Board’s priority is to consolidate and protect hard won gains.
Protecting these gains is a clear recognition that they (gains) did not come cheap and therefore losing them will lead RAL to regress to its undesirable former self and will serve as indication of no appreciation of the immense support the Board received from the Shareholder Representative and RAL management.
The Agency retaining the unqualified audit opinion is a clear indication that we have made that right investment and that we are on the right path towards achieving our next goal, a clean audit opinion. That is where we want RAL to be after the review of the 2018/19 financial year.
We therefore want to make it very clear to management that the Board will not accept anything less than a clean audit opinion in 2018/19.
As the agent of the Limpopo Provincial Government, Roads Agency Limpopo and the Board remains guided by the wisdom of the MEC for the Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure, Honourable Nandi Ndalane, the shareholder representative in our continuing quest for an organisation whose performance is beyond measure.
In our view, the role played by RAL is much more than the delivery of mortar and physical structures. We are connecting the people of Limpopo, enabling business and more importantly creating access for kids to go to schools and parents to reach economic centres and their workplaces.
That is the bigger and significant role played by Roads Agency Limpopo. We want all the role players in particular, the staff of RAL to understand this aspect and how they best contribute to ensure it is realised. We will work with the Executive Management in instilling this message.
Finally, to the people who employed us, the communities we serve. We are mindful of the fact that the people of Limpopo do not need excuses but road infrastructure service delivery. We have therefore taken it upon our shoulders to deliver on this undertaking, within our resource constraints. It is through working together that we can collectively have a positive impact in improving our province.