Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) has welcomed the commitment to infrastructure development as outlined in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. However, CEO Chris Campbell says coordinated action is now needed to translate the commitment into functioning, sustainable infrastructure.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana dedicated a large section of his MTBPS address on November 12 to infrastructure, indicating that government’s goal was to ensure that public sector investment in infrastructure exceeded R1-trillion over the next three years.

“President [Cyril] Ramaphosa has consistently spoken of infrastructure as the flywheel of our economy.

“In line with this vision and advancing our pillar of growth-enhancing infrastructure, we are shifting the composition of spending from consumption to investment.

“Capital payments are the fastest growing expenditure item at 7.5% over the medium-term,” the Minister said, indicating that it would also leverage public resources to mobilise private finance and expertise.

However, Campbell cautioned that similar promises had been made previously, only for projects to stall owing to lack of clear policy direction, limited capacity within public institutions, and procurement processes that failed to value the intellectual services essential to infrastructure success.

“Without confronting deep-rooted procurement challenges and limited capacity within local government, these funds risk falling short of their intended impact,” he warned.

Campbell, thus, called on government to match its fiscal commitment with urgent implementation reforms.

“Strategic, well-resourced procurement of consulting engineering services - intellectual services, not commodities - is essential to unlock innovation and deliver projects that the country can truly benefit from.

“Lowest-cost approaches alone will not achieve these outcomes.

“A comprehensive ‘total cost of ownership’ approach that accounts for design, construction, operations, and maintenance is essential to safeguard infrastructure sustainability,” he argued.