by Richard Jansen van Vuuren

All those wonderful feelings and memories of the Soccer World Cup seem so distant lately. In just two years since the event the construction industry and government have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. How did it all fall apart so easily?

The construction effort leading up to the event may just be our “golden moment” for years to come as the camaraderie, the amazing feats and cohesion we achieved to complete the stadiums and the associated infrastructure might never be repeated.

The construction industry was burned by allegations of collusion and fraud by the government last year. In addition certain cement manufacturers have been fined by the Competition Commission for price fixing, and more recently a truck of worms has been opened as more details about the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project become public.

One of the issues surrounding this controversial project is the construction costs that seemingly spiralled out of control. The Gautrain is no stranger to this particular controversy. Who would have that thought that a government agency such as SANRAL is currently racking up a bad reputation as a bad debtor thanks to Moody’s Investor Services? Who would have ever thought that the public would be accused by the Treasury as economic saboteurs due to an outcry over the expensive GFIP e-toll tariffs?

As things now stand, with a complete lack of trust between the public and private sector, South Africa runs a real risk of not completing ambitious infrastructure projects in years to come. Private business is still seething after the Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, announced that he intends to explore the possibility of the creation of a state-owned construction company.

This statement, however, ran concurrently with the Minister of Water Affairs, Edna Molewa’s, in which she outlined the need to raise to R530-billion over the next decade to address water infrastructure maintenance backlogs. Molewa indicated that the funding from the private sector will be sought.

Kuben Naidoo, head of the secretariat to the National Planning Commission under Minister Trevor Manuel has stated last week that government spend in the construction industry basically collapsed after the World Cup. The hundreds of billions of Rands that are mentioned in each year’s Budget Vote is sitting idle and not being spent.

Treasury has identified three reasons for the collapse in infrastructure spending:

1. Bad procurement planning in government
2. A lack of proper infrastructure programme planning
3. The difficulty of structuring constructive relationships with the private sector.

It is with all these factors in mind that 3S Media will be hosting an event titled: Public Private Infrastructure Forum, government and industry meet to plan the way forwardon 21 and 22 June. Confirmed speakers from the following industry organisations will be making presentations:

• IMESA
• CESA
• SAICE
• SAFCEC
• MBSA
• Cidb
• BBCE

The keynote speaker will be the Minister of Public Works Thembelani Nxesi.

Details on the event will be featured in next week’s infrastructurene.ws newsletter as well as on www.infrastructurene.ws