President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa’s infrastructure build programme will play an increasingly prominent role as government continues to advance structural reforms in the country for an improved business operating environment.

“We will intensify our efforts to ensure infrastructure by both State and business drives economic recovery, growth and job creation,” Ramaphosa writes in his latest weekly newsletter.

He acknowledges that, to achieve the levels of growth that the country needs to create enough jobs for its people, far more construction and more reliable and consistent infrastructure maintenance is necessary.

Infrastructure development has, therefore, become a strategic priority for government, Ramaphosa states, adding that these developments often have multiplier effects driving productivity and job creation as well as improving basic service delivery.

The construction sector is a major source of employment. It accounted for the largest job increases between the second and third quarters of last year.

For many years, capital investment by both the public and private sectors has been in decline. This was owing to, among other things, a difficult economic environment, the diversion of resources through State capture, bureaucratic obstacles and low investor confidence, Ramaphosa explains.

Now, following various reforms and initiatives, government’s infrastructure drive is gathering pace.

A recent report by Nedbank found that the total value of new projects announced by both the public and private sectors last year amounted to R445-billion.

“This was more than double the year before and represents the largest fixed investment in infrastructure in South Africa since 2021,” Ramaphosa says.

It is significant that more than 78% of the value of this infrastructure investment was from government and State-owned enterprises (SOEs)

According to Statistics South Africa, capital spending by SOEs, national, provincial and local government continues to rise.

This while private sector entities announced investment plans in 2024 with a total value of R95-billion, including an R18-billion mixed-use development in Gauteng, a R4-billion investment by Volkswagen to upgrade its Kariega facility in the Eastern Cape and a new private university for the Western Cape.

During the State of the Nation Address and debate, government outlined a number of infrastructure projects already under way across the country.

These include projects in water and sanitation, human settlements, renewable energy, recreational, heritage and maritime infrastructure. They also include road rehabilitation, the refurbishing of State-owned buildings to attract investors and upgrading health facilities.

Ramaphosa says the work of Infrastructure South Africa (ISA), which was established under the sixth administration to lead infrastructure planning, management and delivery, has enabled progress in the implementation of the designated Strategic Infrastructure Projects (SIPs) in areas such as energy, water and sanitation, student accommodation and transport.

To date, 34 out of 50 SIPs are in implementation stage, to the value of R281-billion. An additional pipeline of catalytic projects to the value of R21-billion will break ground this year, Ramaphosa confirms.

To ensure construction projects get going faster and are finished sooner, ISA has launched a project preparation fund worth R180-million to prepare and package infrastructure projects across government.

Recently revised regulations for public-private partnerships will help to further unlock private-sector expertise and  funds for infrastructure.

Moreover, Ramaphosa comments that the South African Police Service is working to deal with the construction mafia, which has had a significant impact on the construction industry in recent year.

Notably, economic infrastructure task teams are making headway in dealing with this criminality.  

Last year, stakeholders attending the National Construction Summit on Crime-Free Sites agreed to collaborate to address construction-site disruptions.

Some of the measures agreed on included enhanced security measures on sites, community engagement and the development of the emerging construction sector.

Construction stoppages as a result of criminal activity are on the decrease since these efforts started, Ramaphosa concludes.