South Africa’s National Roads Agency expects to be able to access a R7-billion loan from the New Development Bank soon and plans to use the money to upgrade key transportation routes.

“The state law adviser must give a legal opinion that it’s all sound; we expect that to come within the next two weeks,” Reginald Demana, the agency’s chief executive officer, said at the signing of the loan agreement in Johannesburg on Tuesday. Finalisation is also contingent on foreign-exchange approvals from the South African Reserve Bank.

Sanral announced on Monday that it had concluded the accord with the bank, which the Brics bloc of nations established in 2015 to fund infrastructure and sustainable-development projects in member countries and other emerging economies. The agency will use the loan to fund the upgrade of four freeways at a cost of R12.7-billion as well as other projects.

The road agency failed to secure government backing for a guarantee for a loan from the lender in 2019. At the time, the National Treasury raised concerns about historic debt related to a road-tolling system that was instituted to fund freeways in the central Gauteng province. The government officially scrapped the system last year.

Following the resolution of the tolling matter, the state approved a R16.5-billion debt cap for Sanral, the agency said.

“We still need to go to the market to raise additional funding,” primarily from domestic institutions, bond investors, banks and other development-finance institutions, Demana said. “The NDB might also be interested to look at more rand funding as part of that.”