Sanral appoints Koos Smit as acting CEO

The Board of the South African National Road Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) on Wednesday announced the appointment of Koos Smit as Acting Chief Executive of the agency.

This follows the resignation yesterday of the agency’s CEO, Nazir Alli.

Smit, [BSc (Civ Eng) Pr Eng], will act as CEO from June 3 while the Board undertakes a process to recruit a permanent replacement for Alli.

Smit, who is currently Engineering Executive, is a long-standing member of SANRAL’s executive management team. He is an engineer of great experience and is widely known in the industry for his contributions to the agency’s successful development and maintenance of South Africa’s national road network.

“The Board has every confidence that Mr Smit will ensure that the daily operations of SANRAL continue at the high level for which the agency is known. SANRAL manages over 16,000 kilometres of the national road network (with only around 3,000km in tolled roads), an extremely important task which will continue to benefit from his steady hand.

“The Board will provide Mr Smit with all the support necessary for him to undertake the role at this challenging time,” SANRAL chairperson Tembakazi Mnyaka said.

Mnyaka said the Sanral Board had also taken note of speculation around the reason for the resignation of Nazir Alli as chief executive officer. In his letter of resignation, Mr Alli did not elaborate on factors that influenced his decision.

“While acknowledging the pressure on SANRAL in recent times, the Board did not believe it necessary in the circumstances to try to explore with him his personal deliberations and reflections.

“We can be certain, however, that this was Mr Alli’s own choice. He was not asked to resign. In fact, in the recent performance assessment of the CEO, the Board assessed him as well above average in his performance,” the SANRAL Board said.

It added: “It is widely acknowledged that SANRAL’s record of delivery under Mr Alli has made it one of the best-performing state owned enterprises for a number of years. Further, the agency has been independently named an employer of choice for two consecutive years.

“We believe this decision of a chief executive with a long record of service and achievement should be respected rather than interrogated.”