SANRAL must stop sabotaging engagement with the people of Amadiba

For more than two decades, the people of Amadiba on the Wild Coast have defended their land and livelihoods from externally imposed mega-projects. The landmark 2018 Baleni judgment secured their right to consent to mining, yet the Xolobeni proposal still resurfaces.

Their longest fight, however, is with SANRAL over the N2 Wild Coast Toll Highway. The Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), mandated by coastal villages and supported increasingly inland, does not oppose development. They oppose a route that cuts through communal land, burial sites, grazing areas and homesteads—threatening a functioning rural economy.

On the Amadiba coast, agriculture and small-scale tourism sustain thousands. Eco-tourism attracts more than 2,000 annual visitors, while farmers supply produce as far as Durban. The Department of Agriculture is pursuing a beneficiation project in Sigidi. SANRAL’s chosen route would run through Sigidi and other villages, crossing 102 farmlands and forcing nearly 80 homestead relocations—graves included.

A Pattern of Obstruction

SANRAL has treated Amadiba residents as obstacles, not stakeholders. This is not administrative clumsiness but a deliberate refusal to engage. A petition from 14 villages is now before Parliament’s Transport Committee, compelling SANRAL to respond. Given the project’s cost and social impact, it should also be examined by committees overseeing finance, land and environmental governance.

A Feasible Alternative—Ignored

Since 2021, the ACC has worked with independent engineers and planners to design an alternative N2 route that shifts the highway 10–12km inland. It is technically sound, less socially disruptive and better aligned with local road networks. Government departments and specialists have not challenged its viability. Yet SANRAL refuses a mid-term review.

Meanwhile, costs have spiralled. Budgeted at R8 billion in 2011, the project reached R20 billion in the 2024/25 Annual Report, and within six months, SANRAL quoted R28 billion to Parliament. This trajectory mirrors Medupi and Kusile—mega-projects with massive overruns that South Africa can ill-afford.

The Wrong Development Model

SANRAL markets the N2 as a development catalyst. But for Wild Coast communities, the underlying model resembles extractivism: mining, speculative tourism and mega-infrastructure benefiting outside investors and politically connected contractors. The Wild Coast’s biodiversity and communal economy are not unused assets—they are functioning livelihoods. A highway through homesteads and farmlands threatens to unravel them.

Fix Local Roads First

A government serious about rural development would prioritise repairing local and district roads—the real arteries of daily economic life. These roads link villages to clinics, schools and markets, yet many are impassable.

Investing in local roads offers four clear developmental gains:

1. Local job creation: Road maintenance is labour-intensive and can employ hundreds of local workers, unlike mega-projects dominated by large external contractors.
2. Support for local enterprise: Better connectivity strengthens markets for small farmers and enables community-based tourism.
3. Climate resilience: Maintained roads reduce erosion and vulnerability to extreme weather—something mega-bridges and high-speed highways do not address.
4. Fiscal sustainability: Incremental improvements to local roads are far more affordable and manageable than multi-billion-rand mega-projects.

The ACC’s alternative route enables these benefits by positioning the highway where it can integrate with the local road network.

Time for Accountability

South Africa cannot absorb another secretive, cost-inflated mega-project. Nor can rural citizens be treated as inconveniences. The ACC has presented research and a workable alternative; SANRAL refuses to engage.

The government must require SANRAL to meet communities directly, conduct a genuine mid-term review, assess the inland route honestly and prioritise local road repair as the real engine of inclusive development.

Anything less would be another betrayal of the people of the Wild Coast.