Message from the group chief executive

Murray & Roberts has adopted a non-negotiable commitment to sustainable earnings growth and value creation, enhancing the growth of its business and adding value in a responsible and sustainable manner.

This commitment drives strategy and decision making and reinforces responsibility to create value for current and future stakeholders and generations.

As corporate citizen, Murray & Roberts is committed to the national agenda of South Africa, including the pursuit of employment equity throughout the organisation, the economic empowerment of all sectors of society and facilitation of the growth of direct investment into the economy.

Everything that is not the natural or agricultural environment is the built environment. This is where Murray & Roberts has played a significant role throughout its 107 year history, delivering the infrastructure and facilities required for sustainable growth of the economies within which it operates. One of our great human challenges is to satisfy the growing global demand for transport & logistics; power & energy; water & sanitation; telecommunications; health & education; and accommodation & facilities infrastructure.

The quantifiable benefits to society of our contribution are not easily identified, but considering the positive impact of an adequate built environment on socio-economic development and the scale required to make the difference measurable, the significance Murray & Roberts has attained in its market over more than 107 years, offers some testimony in this respect.

During the course of this year, we have identified four key sustainability challenges that we are actively addressing. These have the potential to positively impact our business and its ongoing success:

The safety of our employees, contractors and visitors to our sites is a key priority and receives significant focus from me personally and the Group's operating leadership teams. Despite our efforts, nine of our colleagues lost their lives while working for us during 2009. Every fatality touches all of us and I am personally committed to eliminating hazards and inappropriate behaviour to ensure that all our people go home safely and well at the end of each day.

The South African competition authorities have initiated a wide ranging investigation into all aspects of potential collusion in the construction industry. In compliance with its legal obligation, Murray & Roberts has taken an industry lead before any public concern was expressed on possible corruption in the sector. The Group was a founding signatory to the Partnership against Corruption Initiative of the World Economic Forum in 2004, it initiated internal audits across its various operations and commenced a program of communication and training to assist employees in understanding competition law and its implications for the Group. Where any evidence of possible collusion is uncovered, disclosure is made and full cooperation is given to the authorities.

Murray & Roberts broadly reflects the demographic profile of the communities within which it operates. This results in a diverse workforce on multiple dimensions. Discrimination across these dimensions invariably exists in our workplaces and we continuously challenge the status quo of this endemic tendency to discriminate.

We have continued to build our broad-based black economic empowerment and employment equity profiles with many operations having improved their ratings through the year.

We continue to play an important role in social development through employment and training opportunities, infrastructure provision, local business development and payment of taxes in our host countries.

We are committed to supporting the communities within which we operate through our corporate social investment and Letsema empowerment trusts, where we have this year contributed R41,5 million in cash towards supporting university and school upliftment, early childhood development and the development of youth affected and infected by HIV/AIDS and impacted by poverty.*

Murray & Roberts aspires for zero harm to all aspects of its business - its people, partners and clients, the natural environment in which it operates and society in general. It is up to all of us to make this happen, and it starts with me and our leadership teams.

Brian Bruce
Group chief executive