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for projects and fees, with horrendous outcomes, such as inadequate time and funding for training, inability to grow
a business because we cannot afford to employ new younger staff, shrinking turnover and profit levels, etc. One of
my real concerns are if our country’s assets are ‘insured’ at sufficient levels with PI.

I will be the first (and probably not the last) to acknowledge that I will not encourage my children to become
engineers. As Mike mentioned, I also do believe our future is bleak from a career point of view.

But, as old Naas would day, on the other hand, for as long as our main role players are not coming the party
with regards to their procurement systems and timeframes (Very tittle work coming from national nor provisional
governments, the mining sector has shrank as we know, the parastatals are struggling!), the pie is getting smaller
and smaller for everyone the feed from. Now, we are also too scared to repair fees and the application of it, because
of the history about the competitions board. I believe we have gone beyond the point of ‘being scared’ and need to
plea to ECSA to rescue a dying industry. While we may have enough possible projects for engineers in this country,
there are not enough capital to support the projects, nor the number of consultants. I have seen the plea from
government during the late 2000’s asking scholars to study engineering….where are those people now when they
need to put out work to sustain the increase of graduates by substation margin. Where, I ask you?!

I do think that Wally and his team has tried very hard to help to ‘open the tap releasing the work’, but this process
is very frustrating watching it from the side-lines. For as long as the tap is dripping, it will have the effect we are
seeing now in the market.

These are just a few thoughts….but believe me, the answer is not that easy. 20-25 years ago, engineers were
appointed on fair % scales and projects were delivered and feasibilities were acceptable. What changed? Did the
number of consultants increase too much that the available pot of fees has diluted beyond reasonable logic? Are we
now in a ‘you get what you pay for’ type of arrangement?

Our backs are against the wall….our youngsters need the support from our senior statesmen to guide us through
this challenge!

Kindest regards,

Stephan Vermaak PrEng, BEng Civil
Technical Director I Professional Engineer (Civil), Aurecon

Response from Michele Rivarola
Stephan, I live in East London and a fairly relaxed life nogall even if I am at the office working at this point in time.

“All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” Unfortunately this is the growing trend in South Africa,
in our politics, in our businesses and in our everyday life. The results are too much in our faces to deny them.

How do we rescue this industry? I don’t really know, perhaps we need to so ask ourselves first; how did we allow it
to get where it is and at what stage was the cast. As a prospective retiree while I am proud of this country’s many
achievements I am equally embarrassed by its many avoidable failures. I want to look back to my career and say I
have done something for others which may be of lasting value, but alas, I am embarrassed by what I leave behind.
Not everyone feels the same, others believe that where we are was unavoidable. If that is the case then there is
nothing to rescue.

I have always been vociferously against fee reductions without commensurate reduction in service (and here I talk
about quantity and not quality) and my stand is well documented over the years I have been involved with CESA.
When the discussions first came about I warned that once the door was allowed to be ajar there was no controlling
how much it would be opened by. And so here we are whilst the dam has burst trying to swim upstream; I am sorry

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