The President and Registrar for the South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP), Yashaen Luckan and Marella O’Reilly respectively, was invited to join members of Cabinet and MEC’s in Parliament on, Wednesday 20 April for the Budget Vote of The Department of Public Works’ (DPW). Councillor Rowen Ruiters, Chairman of SACAP’s Stakeholder Relations Committee, accompanied O’Reilly to Parliament on behalf of the President.
The Budget Vote Speech is delivered annually. This year it was by Minister Thulas Nxesi who outlined the DPW’s plans and highlight its priorities for the year ahead. Minister Nxesi also informed the distinguished audience on progress and developments taking place within the DPW. The funding issues discussed related to spend allocation advised, in part, by professionals working directly within DPW’s Architecture Unit.
Commenting on the significance of being invited this year and her commitment to travel down to Cape Town in order to attend, O’Reilly notes that, “SACAP’s strategic plan and objectives are aligned with the imperatives of the NDP and the roll out of its cutting edge large scale infrastructure projects. Architects ignite the planning process of projects such as these undertaken by DPW, and can be seen as the apex of the value chain hierarchy which rolls them out.”
SACAP receives its mandate from the Architectural Professionals Act No 44 of 2000 and falls under the purview of DPW. SACAP is one of DPW’s built environment councils and regulates the architecture professionals as well as supports the broader built environment and its projects. DPW’s Council for the Built Environment (CBE) harmonises the relationship of all the professional councils. Together with the other councils, SACAP ensures that it concretises DPW’s mandate to transform the built environment. It does so through developing policies and programmes specifically within the architectural profession.
