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Sustaining Consulting Engineering is Key to

Growing the Economy

ESA’s President, Abe Thela, presented his yet revealed the project pipeline going forward. The
presidential message and theme for the year at industry needs this information to commit to long term
Ca media function held in Johannesburg in early planning and investment in more resources. Although
February. With the theme of ‘Sustaining Consulting there were delays in implementation since the NDP
Engineering is Key to Growing the Economy’ Thela which was adopted at the end of 2012, CESA is looking
stated that the National Development Plan (NDP) forward to an acceleration of this programme in 2014.
was created in order to develop the South Africa’s
economy. Government through the NDP has identified With Government’s plan to grow the economy and
infrastructure development as key to the socio economic triple GDP by 2030 the Consulting Engineering Industry
development of the country. Thela believes that the has a significant role to play in achieving this growth
NDP and its objectives will never come to fruition unless through infrastructure development. Thela stated, “The
there is involvement of consulting engineers at the Consulting Engineering industry is facing a number
forefront of this development. of challenges but by far the most challenging is how
consulting engineering services are currently procured,
Consulting Engineering, although a relatively small as it is stifling the industry”:
sector, has a large multiplier effect on the development
of infrastructure as consulting engineers are the Quality a Key Component of Procurement
designers that create the large scale infrastructure While CESA does not oppose competitive bidding,
projects that employ large numbers of people during which is a constitutional imperative, price should not
the construction, operation and maintenance phases of be the determining basis. CESA believes that it should
infrastructure. be based on quality taking into account the bidder’s
qualifications, experience, capability and innovation.
NDP Project Pipeline Key to Long
Term Planning The bulk of infrastructure cost lies in construction and
CESA is pleased that Government has prioritized maintenance with the cost of consulting engineering
infrastructure development as a key component of only being 1 - 2% of the project lifecycle cost. So it
accelerated economic development. In his 2013 makes perfect sense that a procurement system that
medium term budget policy statement Minister Pravin takes the entire project life cycle into account should
Gordhan allocated R827billion to infrastructure for the be implemented when procuring consulting engineering
three year period ending 2015/16. CESA welcomes this services. Consulting engineers need to go back to their
announcement but are concerned government has not very important role of being trusted advisers to the client

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