CESA President, Sugen Pillay recently hosted Presidential Webinars focused on keeping CESA Members across the country abreast of industry developments, focused on Limpopo and Mpumalanga as well as the Free State and Northern Cape regions.

The Limpopo and Mpumalanga Presidential Webinar was hosted on Thursday, 20 May and featured an incredible speaker line-up. Welcoming attendees and introducing the speakers was CESA CEO Chris Campbell who discussed issues currently affecting the consulting engineering industry and infrastructure development in South Africa.

The first speaker discussing ‘Best practice procurement – engineering services’ was Livhu Motabatsindi, CESA Limpopo Branch Chairperson. In his presentation, Motabatsindi said “As engineers and engineering companies, let us try to be as fair as we can to ourselves. We need to fight corruption”. He was followed by Chalmers Pagiwa, CESA Mpumalanga Branch Chairperson talking about the ‘Engineering skills pipeline – capacity’. Pagiwa stated that we need to optimise what we currently have before we can develop further infrastructure.

Sammy Makoti, Polokwane Municipality’s director for Water and Sanitation presented ‘Polokwane’s service infrastructure issues and solutions – water services.’ Makoti explained that the municipality is running 15 water schemes and when they budget, they budget for all 15 individually. “In order to operationalise the regional waste water treatment works, we have had to bring the sewer from 3 different areas,” stated Makoti.

The audience was kept captivated by the Department of Water & Sanitation, Mpumalanga Regional Manager, Fikile Guma’s discussion on ‘Engineering Mpumalanga Service Infrastructure – water services’. Guma mentioned that Mpumalanga consists of 77 municipal owned waste water treatment works (WWTWs) within their jurisdiction and it is not about the tap in the yard, it is about the water coming out of the tap, which is a totally different story. "Some of the key issues affecting water services include the lack of operational maintenance, no or low budget provision for equipment maintenance and repairs,” Guma stated in his presentation.

CESA President Sugen Pillay was the final speaker presenting his message for 2021 ‘Rebuilding with Purpose”. Pillay mentioned that we really need to rethink our spatial planning and look at ways of bringing infrastructure to rural areas. "We encourage great community involvement in infrastructure projects. We also require collaboration from all spheres resulting in a partnership to build state capacity," he stated.

To view the Webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRsvkEkP2W0

On the 3rd June, CESA hosted the Free State and Northern Cape Presidential Webinar. CESA Contractual Affairs Manager, Wally Mayne welcomed attendees and introduced the speakers. CESA Northern Cape Branch Vice Chairperson, JR Oliphant discussed the ‘Best practice procurement – engineering services’. Oliphant commended CESA CEO Chris Campbell for standing up for the engineering fraternity regarding the deployment of Cuban engineers. He also mentioned that disorganised contract management results in a number of pain points.

Presenting the ‘Engineering skills pipeline – capacity’ was Pearl Mabija, CESA Young Professionals Forum Northern Cape Chairperson. Mabija discussed the process of registration to become an engineer, a great topic for young engineers on their journey to professional registration. She was followed by Takiso Lebone, Department of Treasury, Free State,  Sustainable Resource Management, Chief Director discussing ‘Promoting effective and efficient infrastructure delivery.’ In his presentation, Lebone discussed government’s intention to ensure effective and efficient infrastructure delivery since the early 2000's when Treasury commissioned the review of provincial service delivery systems in 2001, with the purpose of enhancing infrastructure delivery. “When it comes to infrastructure procurement, it is not as clear cut as hiring a person for a post, this is one area which a lot of departments have failed to master, resulting in irregular expenditure,” stated Lebone.

The Northern Cape Economic Development Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (NCEDA) CEO Hendrik Louw discussed infrastructure development in the Northern Cape. Louw said their mission is to contribute towards growth and sustainable development in the Northern Cape. “Critical for me in this is that we have entered into a new arena of engineering innovation. We cannot handle sanitation like we used to,” he said.
Sabelo Mkhize, Sol Plaatje Municipality’s  Compliance Manager for Water and Sanitation discussed the topic ‘Municipal Infrastructure and Services’. Mkhize stated that their municipality is both a Water Services Authority (WSA) and a Water Service Provider (WSP).

Owing to the unavailability of CESA President, Sugen Pillay, CESA CEO Chris Campbell delivered the Presidential Address.  He mentioned there was a seriousness now about professionalising the public sector and that CESA is part of the Minister’s task team. “We need to look at what we have and find ways of fixing it. We need to have our maintenance interventions in time,” stated Campbell.

To view the Webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXzGykKM_l4