Gauteng will spend more than R94 billion on both social and economic infrastructure projects over the next three years, Finance MEC Barbara Creecy said earlier this week.

“By investing in social and economic infrastructure, including quality public transport, re-engineering the province’s spatial framework in new human settlements, mainstreaming township economies and providing quality health care and education, we intend to put our global city region on a new trajectory of integrated development and social and economic inclusion,” MEC Creecy said.

To finance the social and economic infrastructure programme, the province will increase its revenue through better planning and co-ordination between different spheres of government on infrastructure priorities and spending.

Speaking at a conference on innovative infrastructure financing resources and pooled financing mechanisms for South African municipalities in Johannesburg, MEC Creecy said Gauteng Premier David Makhura had established the Provincial Infrastructure Coordinating Committee (PICC).

The committee will be chaired by Premier Makhura and all the mayors in the city region.

“This forum has already identified a common list of priority infrastructure projects which the province and the cities all agree must be funded over the next 15 years.

“We see this as an important step in giving investor certainty in relation to priority areas for investment,” MEC Creecy said.

Premier Makhura is expected to give more details about the PICC in his State of the Province Address in February.

MEC Creecy said both the public and private sectors can play an important role in financing infrastructure investment.

She said the National Development Plan emphasized government’s willingness to take the lead in prioritising infrastructure investment, with the aim of crowding in private sector investment over time.

“… I want to urge all of us in considering ways in which we will raise alternative funding for infrastructure projects, not to forget the many lessons we have all learned in government over the past 20 years in tightening up on implementation and contract management processes,” she said.

– SAnews.gov.za