The recent inaugural symposium of the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (SIDSSA), held on 23 June and in a vastly changed Covid-19 world, saw President Cyril Ramaphosa cement his call on financiers and government stakeholders to come up with extraordinary measures to reinvigorate a vastly underperforming South African economy.
As a result, 276 projects from across the private and public sectors were identified to fast track a robust infrastructure pipeline expected to set South Africa back on track.
"With all these projects now falling under the National Department of Public Works & Infrastructure (NDPWI), Minister Patricia de Lille faces the responsibility of ensuring this pipeline is built," says Deon van Zyl, Western Cape Property Development Forum’s (WCPDF’s) Chairperson.
In the Minister’s own words on 23 June, she acknowledged the property development and construction sector as not only being “hit the hardest” by the Covid-19 pandemic but, at policy level, the industry which was “one of the least transformed” in the country. Minister’s De Lille’s responsibility to deliver the pipeline is therefore a monumental task at this point in time, adds Van Zyl.
He points to the two-year struggle by the sector to "wrestle itself out from under the red tape and bureaucratic mountain that has seen much of our industry collapse and big names fold, losing thousands of jobs in the process countrywide".
"As noted in the National Planning Commission background paper Public infrastructure delivery and construction sector dynamism in the South African economy by Drs Ron Watermeyer and Sean Philips, the number of people employed by our sector is historically only surpassed by agriculture and mining, and is therefore an industry regarded as ‘being among the most efficient in generating employment for a given capital inflow'."
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Van Zyl says, "This will place the actions of the Minister and her department even more under the microscope, not only regarding the need to transform the policies that govern our industry, but to resurrect one of the three largest employers in the country. And one must appreciate this goes way beyond only the construction workers on site, but to all those technical, professional and financial teams responsible for creating the vision that will ultimately place a spade into the ground."
Minister De Lille is expected to discuss this and other crucial topics with the South African industry on Thursday September 17, when she speaks in the second of the Western Cape Property Development Forum’s (WCPDF’s) Virtual “In Conversation” Series on Government investing in growth through infrastructure projects.
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Engaging with the Minister in this important debate will be national panellists Webster Mfebe (South African Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors), Vuyiswa Mutshekwane (South African Institute of Black Property Professionals) and myself on behalf of the WCPDF. The webinar will be facilitated by Bafikile Bonke Simelane (South African Council for the Project and Construction Management Professions). Simelane, who currently sits on the WCPDF’s management committee, is a past-president of Master Builders South Africa and was also the programme manager for the NDPWI’s Programme for Accelerated Capital Expenditure (PACE), so he is very well-placed to lead this important debate. Click here to see more details or register for the event.
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Van Zyl says, "Authorities need to give serious consideration to the practical and cost implications related to the detail required for land use applications."
"I have recently, through the Construction Covid-19 Rapid Response Task, been exposed to the application procedures of other provinces, all purporting to comply with SPLUMA requirements and yet all being fundamentally different. I think it is time to start lobbying national government for a National Fixed Capital Investment Development Act that brings together all development related legislation into one application."
