Page 4 - index

Presidents

Report

Sustaining Consulting

Engineering is Key to Growing

ABE THELA
Nyeleti Consulting Engineers the Economy
CESA President

he National Development Plan (NDP) was concrete elements coming out of the revision process
created in order to develop the South Africa’s is that the new procurement regulations will separate
Teconomy. Government through the NDP the procurement of our services (together with that of
has identified infrastructure development as key those involved in infrastructure planning and design
to the socio economic development of the country. as well as implementation) from the procurement of
Throughout this year as I travelled to all 11 of our general goods and services. This is one battle we have
regions I stated that the NDP and its objectives will won in the war of a fair and transparent procurement
never come to fruition unless there is involvement approach to our services which will result in a thriving
of consulting engineers at the forefront of this and sustainable consulting engineering sector.
development. Consulting Engineering, although a However, the bigger battle of introducing functionality,
relatively small sector, has a large multiplier effect as part of procurement points scoring alongside
on the development of infrastructure as we are the price and preference points, is still be fought. It
designers that create the large scale infrastructure was encouraging that all professions in our sector
projects that employ large numbers of people during together with technocrats in Government supported
the construction, operation and maintenance phases this proposal. There are however variances in this
of infrastructure. proposal such as the inclusion of points for targeted
enterprise development in the point scoring formula.
The procurement of consulting engineering services
The debate is ongoing.
took centre stage in our 2014 Presidential theme
Sustaining Consulting Engineering is Key to Growing We continued to play a crucial role in the Presidential
Infrastructure Task Team of the Gov/Bus bilateral
the Economy. We have made presentations to
CESA Annual Review 2013 / 2014 Team on how CESA believes the procurement of efficient business engagement with Government.
various Government institutions including National
created by President Jacob Zuma to engage private
Treasury and the Presidential Infrastructure Task
sector on solutions to hindrances to the effective and
A meeting with the President, for private sector
consulting engineering services should be carried
out. Our official position on procurement of consulting
to present these proposals which includes the
procurement of our services, is still awaited.
engineering services is for functionality points to be
included in the calculation of bid evaluation points
While we wait for the regulations to be repealed we,
alongside points for price and preference.
as a sector, also have a responsibility to ensure that
process of revising procurement regulations. So far the
regulations can do so much and the rest is entirely
4 I am happy to report that National Treasury is in the the procurement process is fair and transparent. The