DIGEST 2006 - Sabita

Towards an informed industry:
Updating best practice
guidelines and documents
Trevor Distin
Chief Executive Officer
Sabita
Notwithstanding various
approaches to the
National Department of
Transport (NDoT) by both
Sabita and the Road
Pavements Forum, culminating
in a briefing by Sabita of the
Minister of Transport, Jeff
Radebe in November 2005,
national documents that are
supposed to reflect best
practice for the design,
construction and maintenance
of roads continue to languish
in a state of obsolescence.
This inability on the part of NDoT
to respond to a well articulated
national need could possibly be
ascribed to the irreversible
migration of institutional
knowledge to the SA National
Roads Agency Ltd (SANRAL) when
that body was established in 1998.
Sabita has always held the view
that these documents, such as the
series of Technical Recommendations
for Highways (TRH), and
Technical Methods for Highways
(TMH) and national specifications,
form the basis of sound
engineering practice aimed at the
optimal provision and maintenance
of our road network. A further
benefit is that these documents
can provide an essential
springboard for new entrants into
the roads industry, whereby they
can avail themselves of the
benefits of decades of experience
and achievement in the roads
industry.
Incisive action
Given the crucial role of up-todate
codes of practice and
specifications in ensuring the
sustainability of the road building
industry and to stem the erosion
of skills from the various road
authorities at both provincial and
municipal levels, incisive corrective
action needs to be taken by
appropriate industry sectors to
redress the shortcomings.
Sabita has responded to this need
by significantly increasing its
investment in technology
development in the bituminous
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