Ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s First State of the Nation Address (SONA) post the 2019 National and Provincial General Elections, CESA President Neresh Pather and CEO Chris Campbell, were invited to NewzRoom Afrika’s Biz on Prime to discuss infrastructure’s role in growing the economy. Hosted by Business Editor, Sam Mkokeli, the interview aimed to find out CESA’s wish list and what needs to be done to boost economic development. Neresh said he was looking forward to feedback from the president in terms of the new cabinet and his plans on items that are of interest to CESA which include the policy committee he has set up in the presidency which is a positive view in terms of policies governing infrastructure.
Neresh also mentioned that the picture starts with consulting engineering. “We are the back bone in terms of all of the planning and the feasibility of large scale infrastructure, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that large infrastructure projects employ thousands or hundreds of thousands of people and one of the big issues we have from the country’s point of view aside from the demand for infrastructures is being able to employ people”, he said. Neresh further stated that if the planning is right, is done consistently and properly, we believe those are the building blocks to growing our economy.
Chris stated that we can’t have a situation where young graduates come out of university and our companies are unable to employ them simply because we do not have enough infrastructure projects on the go. He also mentioned that for the most part we find that there is an appetite for the private sector to want to finance some of these projects because there is a realization that not all of the funding exists within government. “What really needs to happen now is that we require policy certainty and trust especially when we come to our application of procurement regulations and whether we are getting the best value for money with some of the current processes we have adopted”, he said.
In concluding his remarks, Neresh stated that the construction industry has been far behind in terms of the digital drive and we are seeing a lot of energy going into technology. “We are seeing more emphasis placed on climate resilience and being able to do more with less and being able to drive infrastructure that is resilient across all changes, so those are areas we are seeing definite intelligence”, he stated.
Wrapping up, Chris said the partnership between government and private sector in terms of funding has always been there. “We could probably do a lot more of that and I think we are really in a situation where we are going to need to because the fact of the matter is that if we don’t start stimulating our own economy and investing in our own economy, we are not that easily going to get foreign investors to want to invest in South Africa,” said Chris. He also mentioned that there needs to be a happy balance between your local capacity and your local capability, in fact South African engineering expertise is valued across the world. “What we need to do is have that balance between the kind of knowledge sharing that could take place by involving large multi-national companies in our market but we need to do it in a better way than some of our neighbouring countries have so that at least our local practitioners have the skills and the knowledge to look after the infrastructure we have developed for the next 30 to 50 years,” concluded Chris.
To watch the full video interview, visit CESA President and CEO NewzRoom Afrika interview |
