Authorities highlighted the importance of infrastructure projects being headed by competent and qualified personnel at the Infrastructure Dialogue at the Development Bank of South Africa in Midrand.
Pule Mokoena According to Black Business Council policy and research executive Pule Mokoena, the country needs people who are well capacitated to run infrastructure projects as there are currently have good plans to drive infrastructure development in South Africa. “[B]ut there is no implementation of these plans because the resources fall into the hands of people who are not qualified to head such projects,” he said at the dialogue. Zakhele Mnqayi Speaking at the event, Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (Misa) capacity building unit head Zakhele Mnqayi said that more needs to be done to ensure that infrastructure projects are headed by competent personnel in order to complete and develop the projects. Misa has provided support for municipalities with regard to capacity building for the infrastructure sector dealt with the technical capacity of the projects.
Investigations into the lack of service delivery by the municipalities found the most evident problem to be a lack of skilled and qualified individuals to lead infrastructure projects. Consequently, Misa developed programmes to deal with the lack of municipal infrastructure development.
Jeremy Timm National Treasury senior technical advisor for infrastructure and rural development, technical assistance unit, Jeremy Timm, stated that in order to achieve sustainability in performance and capacity building, capacity has to be built in individuals and organisations. He believes that if individual and organisational capacity is addressed, the sector would gain an understanding of the importance of employing competent and qualified people to head projects. “At an individual level, we have to start by educating individuals to run such projects and ensure that they are well equipped. At an organisational level, the management of projects is key and the environment in which people work in makes the difference,” he said. (Source: Engineering News)
