Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) has urged government to take active steps to fully unlock the much-vaunted R900-billion infrastructure pipeline by ensuring that projects are urgently progressed to “shovel-ready’ status.

Newly appointed president Olu Soluade noted on Thursday that, while tender activity had improved, there was “still little evidence that these tenders are being awarded at any sort of reasonable pace”.

“It also raises questions about the claim that any of the gazetted Strategic Infrastructure Projects from 2020 were indeed ‘shovel ready’ or being fast-tracked on any sort of broad base,” Soluade said in an address delivered in Sandton.

Cesa’s most recent biannual economic and capacity survey showed that the construction industry was the worst-performing sector of the economy once again in 2021, underpinned by a sharp pull-back in public sector activity.

Half of the project activity last year had arisen from the private sector, which was traditionally not the main source of workflow for consulting engineers; public sector clients, including State-owned companies, have typically comprised about 60% of project activity.

The survey also uncovered an alarming number of project cancellations and fierce competition among bidders.

“As an industry, we call on President Cyril Ramaphosa, as he prepares for his State of the Nation address next week, to focus government’s efforts on unlocking the much publicised, close to R900-billion project pipeline into shovel-ready projects.

“We believe the State can achieve this by leveraging as much of the technical and built environment capacity in the private sector as is needed to fill the gaps that exist in the public sector as a matter of urgency.”

Soluade argued that supplementing the limited engineering capacity of the public sector with private sector skills would help ensure that the infrastructure programme contributed more meaningfully to the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Programme.

Visible infrastructure progress was also key to reigniting hope across the country and could assist in rewriting the “gloomy narrative which has dominated our lives in recent years”.

Soluade also issued a “call to service” to Cesa members and engineers more generally, arguing that it was time for engineers to become more proactive in contributing to South Africa’s rebuilding.

“In every project, we must look to optimise its positive impact on big issues impacting our country, such as poverty, inequality and unemployment.

“We must apply our minds to ensure even the smallest projects have a significant impact.”