Merely making promises about infrastructure projects is pointless unless government authorities start to embrace engineers, says South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) president Friedrich Slabbert.
“When President [Cyril] Ramaphosa launched a project book in May he told contractors and consultants, ‘You need to be ready,’” he says.
“I can tell you the engineering fraternity, consultants and contractors, are waiting. They are ready. They have the knowledge and experience.
“While they are waiting, large engineering companies in South Africa have offices in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Asia and Saudi Arabia where highly qualified, globally top-graded South African engineers are working on infrastructure projects while they wait for the tide to turn in South Africa.”
The total book value of the published projects in the pipeline is R238bn. All of these projects have passed the needs identification phase, Slabbert says.
Now the planning starts, the feasibility studies, the preparation, the costing, the funding. The main player responsible for overseeing this critical phase of any project is the relevant government authority.
“Even if you have a PPP [public-private partnership], if the authority does not have the institutional skills the project is not going to move.”
As reports of the auditor-general have made clear, most government authorities do not.
“Many, many of the officials in most of the smaller municipalities have none of those skills. They’re appointing people to do projects they’re not qualified to do.”
He says a “toxic environment” in these municipalities, characterised by cadre deployment and political interference, has left them without technical skills.
“The technical people want to do a technical, professional job and are overruled in many, many instances by the politicians. That becomes so toxic that people leave to work for consulting engineers or contractors.”
The main point in the SAICE’s submission to the review of the 1998 local government white paper now being conducted by the department of co-operative government & traditional affairs, Slabbert says, is that infrastructure projects cannot succeed unless the engineering fraternity, “including technologists who can do the work”, is involved from start to finish.
When it gets to construction if there is no proper oversight and control, we are not going to have sustainable projects
— Friedrich Slabbert
“If that basic element is not done appropriately the project is commenced and as you go on you find out that the terms of reference are inappropriate. When it gets to construction if there is no proper oversight and control, we are not going to have sustainable projects.”
He cites a case in East London highlighted by the AG in November last year. Construction on a R360m regional water supply project was stopped during Covid. After Covid it stalled because the money had gone.
“SAICE is collaborating with National Treasury to assist with knowledge and experience so they can do a proper assessment of the funding required, the feasibility, ensure proper control measures are in place and so on, before it goes back to the municipality for implementation. None of this happened appropriately at the municipal level,” Slabbert says.
“I can’t see that all of a sudden that project is flying now, but it can’t be shelved. The people living there didn’t just disappear all of a sudden, and they still need water.”
Lack of technical oversight and official accountability are common problems, he says, citing the disastrous Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant in Tshwane.
“Have you heard of any accountability there? Yes, the department of water affairs is there. Everyone says what must be done, what should have been done. But the authority remains responsible. I haven’t heard of anyone being fired or charged for professional misconduct or things like that.”
The second project book gives hope because there was proper identification and proper feasibility studies and now from a national perspective there will be more supervision and control over these projects across provinces and municipalities.
Also, newly promulgated regulations allow PPPs for projects lower than R1bn. If this had applied to the R360m East London project it would not have been such a fiasco, he says.
“So the tide is changing. But far, far too slowly.”
And despite Ramaphosa telling SAICE its members need to be ready, the majority of municipalities still exclude properly qualified engineers.
In the developed world the ratio of engineers to the general population is one in 300, Slabbert says, but in South Africa it is one in 3,000.
“If we don’t clean up all our public authorities, not just municipal authorities, and make sure they have the necessary skills, things are not going to change. In many municipalities there are no engineers. More than 50% have no people with technical skills.”
The greatest threat to infrastructure projects is the trust deficit, which is preventing engineers from being involved, he says.
If you take infrastructure out of society then you are sitting under a tree providing schooling and health services
— Friedrich Slabbert
“Trust needs to be built between the public and private sector. As engineers we want to be involved. That’s why we live; to serve society. We need to be at the table from the inception of a project. Then we’re involved with the design, the tender, the procurement process, the ethics. We can tell people what to look out for, and blow the whistle and do what we can.
“We as an engineering fraternity with the knowledge and experience to do these projects need to be forcing ourselves to sit at that table. Many of our engineers don’t want to sit at that table because of the trust thing.”
They need to know that their knowledge, experience and expertise are not going to be ignored because they are seen as a threat to some or other vested interest, Slabbert says.
The country has to go beyond extravagant promises of infrastructure development to actual execution of properly designed, sustainable projects, he says.
“We were very glad that in the state of the nation address this year there weren’t promises again of a bullet train between Johannesburg and Polokwane or something like that.
“We can laugh about it but go back one year. Those were the types of promises that were on the table. Now promises are based on the project book of R238bn that has been prepared and announced by the president. Two years ago, there was no project book.”
Ensuring projects are professionally executed from start to finish is non-negotiable.
“If you take infrastructure out of society then you are sitting under a tree providing schooling and health services.”
The situation is urgent, he says. “But we have the tools to fix it.”
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