Newly-appointed Public Works and Infrastructure Minister, Dean Macpherson, yesterday acknowledged the slow pace of infrastructure delivery in South Africa, and said a “new vision and reality” was required if the country’s infrastructure was to be rebuilt.
At the Infrastructure Africa Conference in Cape Town yesterday, his first public engagement after being sworn-in as minister two weeks ago, Macpherson said he and the department did not have “all the answers” or the funding to unlock faster infrastructure development.
However, he said infrastructure was widely understood to be the “fly-wheel” of economic growth adding, “I would like to transform South Africa into a massive construction site. It is possible…”
Macpherson suggested new “funding models” would be introduced to make it easier for the private sector to invest in government infrastructure projects.
He said also that he would suggest to the National Treasury to make longer-term financing, perhaps 10 years available specifically for infrastructure, so that allocated funding did not simply get re-allocated with every change in the Budget, as often happened with allocated infrastructure spending.
Macpherson said he would also establish an infrastructure advisory committee for his ministry.
In an indication that the new Government of National Unity was not however disbanding progress made during the previous government administration, Macpherson said the Department’s Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) agency “is doing rock solid work on infrastructure planning for the country”.
A recent initiative was President Cyril Ramaphosa’s launch in March of the Infrastructure Book, which listed some 158 potential infrastructure projects worth R158 billion.
Macpherson said while there was great potential for these projects, additional funding through private-public sector partnerships was required.
He said, however, that at local government-level, the problems were slightly different when it came to infrastructure delivery, with many municipalities having large underfunded deficits, and because there was lack of suitable experience and skills in the development and delivery of these projects.
The minister said the “construction mafia” were criminal organisations claiming to be SMEs who demand work and money on construction projects – particularly big projects – and resort to intimidation and extortion while the police were not doing enough to combat this crime.
“Anyone who seeks to hold back an infrastructure project will be considered an enemy of the state… There won’t be any negotiations” with the criminals, he said.
Dirk van der Berg, representing UK Export Finance, said it was a good idea to establish an advisory committee on infrastructure in the Public Works and Infrastructure Ministry. He said he did not believe there was a shortage of financing for infrastructure in Africa, the problems lay in the implementation of the projects.
Dr Hubert Joynt, programme manager at the Centre of Excellence at ISA, explained why transport and logistics infrastructure development was critical for the continent, saying 60% of Africa’s cargo was transported on land.
Africa Rail Industry Association executive director, Mesela Kope-Nhlapo, said Africa needed to be at the centre of its own infrastructure development and in the development of standards for that development.
Delegates had listed the different gauge railway systems on the continent as a serious impediment to regional trade and economic development.
Currently, “if we have a project funded by the Chinese, we get a project with Chinese standards, and if we have a project funded by the US, it will be developed to US standards”, she said.
Kope-Nhlapo said the continent did not want “job opportunities” through these projects, but “sustainable jobs”. Countries on the continent needed to start talking in a “consolidated way” when it came to infrastructure development.
BUSINESS REPORT