In a joint industry statement the South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (SAFCEC) and Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) stated that they were appalled by the recent announcement by Government of the R12,4 billion underspend budgeted for Municipal infrastructure projects.

Graham Pirie CEO of CESA, stated, "CESA considers this very disturbing as it has had a negative impact on communities struggling with service delivery issues and that the Construction industry relies heavily on Municipal expenditure in order to survive." He goes on to state that more importantly infrastructure that we do have is not being adequately maintained and that an example of this is our local road networks that are a ticking time bomb.

SAFCEC Executive Director, Neville Gurry, said the underspend was a tragedy and that there are numerous reasons for this, but one of the biggest contributing factors was the lack of capacity and expertise in government departments to both implement new projects and to maintain existing infrastructure.

Both Associations through their BUSA affiliation, were interacting with the stakeholders in Government's New Growth Path (NGP) initiative to create jobs through infrastructure spend. New delivery models were being considered which would assist with the implementation of numerous projects.

It is hoped that the establishment of the Presidential Infrastructure Commission, chaired by President Zuma will make a meaningful contribution and they called upon the President to involve the private sector in this process going forward.

Gurry noted, however, that the key was to action the strategies as soon as possible in order to not only create jobs, but to mitigate the radical downsizing of the local built environment industry.

Contact details:

Graham Pirie
Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA)
Tel: 011 463 2022
Email: gspirie@cesa.co.za
www.cesa.co.za

Neville Gurry
Executive Director, SAFCEC
Tel: 011 409 0900
Email: Neville@safcec.org.za
www.safcec.org.za