Enhancing roads management and administration through implementation of international standards and South African National Standards

Abstract

The paper reflects on the Department of Transport’s awareness campaign covering the scope, applicability and linkage of existing Government policies to standards published by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and South African National Standards (SANS), specifically the ISO 55001 Asset Management System and SANS 1393 Construction Management System. The paper also reflects on observations and discussions emanating from stakeholder workshops on the significance of accreditation schemes for conformity assessment or certification bodies by the South African Accreditation Scheme (SANAS) and the relevance of person certification auditor schemes, which are crucial to uniformly implement standards in line with “conformity assessment technical infrastructure frameworks”. It was observed that the linkage of these and other standards as instruments for work-place skills development, addressing inefficiencies in governance and administration of roads to improve financial performance, service delivery and management of suppliers are not necessarily well-known or understood; most surprisingly, by professional service providers, especially companies contracted for asset management services.