Amendments have been made to the Infrastructure Development Bill following the process of public consultation.

Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel told the economic development portfolio committee that his department had taken into account the 30 submissions made in public hearings this month and incorporated them into five criteria for proposed amendments.

Patel briefed MPs on the revised bill earlier this week. The changes were made to strengthen the bill’s constitutionality, reduce ambiguity and ensure that public consultations are carried out correctly.

According to Patel, the bill came about because of the large infrastructure projects that the government was undertaking. “The government spends a lot of money on infrastructure and we want to get the best value we can for it,” he said.

Patel also proposed that the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission (PICC) be renamed a council because it includes the president, cabinet ministers, provincial premiers and mayors of metropolitan municipalities. The bill will give legal standing to the PICC which will designate strategic infrastructure projects (SIPs) and appoint steering committees to manage them.

The PICC and its structures will not have their own budgets. Instead they will be funded out of the departmental budgets or the budgets of the state-owned companies responsible for managing a project. According to Patel, this is in line with Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s programme of ensuring that taxes are spent effectively.