If SA’s infrastructure was meant to be the engine of economic revival, the April 2025 Construction Monitor reads like the operator’s manual for a stalled locomotive.
Released by the department of public works & infrastructure, the report reveals a sector limping through dysfunction: delayed projects, missed expenditure targets, weak provincial delivery and private sector hesitancy — all in a context in which the stakes for infrastructure-led growth have never been higher.
Despite government’s infrastructure investment plan being framed as a cornerstone of post-Covid economic recovery, the data suggests a structural failure to convert intention into implementation.
The National Infrastructure Plan 2050, the country’s much-lauded blueprint for co-ordinated delivery, remains dangerously disconnected from the realities on the ground.
While President Cyril Ramaphosa recently labelled budget underspending as “treason”, the Construction Monitor makes clear that the true culprits are deeper: chronic capacity weaknesses, cumbersome procurement systems and fragmented intergovernmental co-ordination.
The numbers behind the noise
The report confirms what contractors and communities already know: too many infrastructure projects are stuck in pre-construction. Of the nearly 9,000 projects in the infrastructure built environment information platform, more than half remain in the planning phase: billions in allocations are technically “active” but practically nowhere.
Only a slim fraction of nationally monitored strategic integrated projects are progressing at a meaningful pace. Where progress is visible — in transport, energy and human settlements — it is uneven and regionally concentrated. Provinces such as Gauteng and Western Cape outperform, while others — notably Limpopo, the North West and the Eastern Cape — trail behind, raising familiar questions about local capacity and political will.
Capacity or catatonia?
Perhaps the most damning thread in the Construction Monitor is the scale of project delays directly tied to skills shortages at municipal and provincial level. The project preparation facility — meant to assist struggling organs of state in packaging viable projects — has yet to reach full operational scale. Key engineering, planning and procurement posts remain unfilled or are occupied by unqualified personnel.
Local government continues to operate without credible multiyear project pipelines, and where such pipelines do exist they are all too often compromised by political interference, poor feasibility studies or flawed procurement strategies. It’s not uncommon for tenders to be cancelled often due to noncompliance, sending delivery timelines into a spiral of readvertisements and stalled mobilisation.
Private sector — waiting, watching — withheld
Private sector involvement, once heralded as the missing piece in the infrastructure jigsaw, continues to underwhelm. Regulatory uncertainty, delayed environmental approvals and opaque procurement processes are major deterrents. Public-private partnerships remain a niche financing mechanism instead of the mainstream solution they are elsewhere.
Anecdotally, several contractors report winning bids for infrastructure projects, only to wait more than 12 months for site access, environmental green lights or payment terms to be finalised. This delays not only project execution but sectoral investment appetite. Capital follows credibility, and the state has neither in adequate supply.
Expenditure vs execution
The most unsettling revelation is the disjuncture between budget allocations and delivery. A consistent trend across departments and provinces is the underspending of capital budgets, particularly in the first three quarters of the financial year. The Treasury flags “slow procurement” and “poor contract management” — but these are symptoms of a deeper malaise: planning inefficiency and an overly centralised supply chain management regime that is neither agile nor locally empowered.
Moreover, infrastructure is being misclassified as an output rather than an outcome. Officials proudly report R100m spent on roadworks — but don’t explain whether the road is usable, completed on time or actually serves its intended economic purpose. The metrics of success remain rooted in financial disbursement, not public impact.
Reform or ruin
The April 2025 Monitor is less a report than a warning. Without radical reform of the state’s planning and delivery machinery, SA’s ambitions for inclusive infrastructure development will remain firmly on paper. The Construction Management Foundation advocates three structural responses:
- Decentralise technical capacity. Equip district municipalities with ring-fenced technical teams insulated from political interference.
- Enforce delivery accountability. Institute penalties for nonperformance, including project cancellations, against senior officials and contractors.
- Professionalise infrastructure management. Require all supply chain management units, project management units and implementing agencies to meet minimum competence thresholds — tied to funding disbursements.
The alternative is more drift. More cancelled tenders. More communities watching ribbon-cuttings on TV while potholes deepen outside their doors. Until SA moves from commitment to capability, the construction sector will remain a monument to missed opportunity.
• Siphika is CEO of the Construction Management Foundation.
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