November 2013
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
10
marketplace
Founder of construction business
Silverline Group, Jonathan Pepler,
has been recognised for his
remarkable accomplishments
during the early stages of a
business life cycle by being
awarded the 2013 Emerging
Entrepreneur of the Year® title
in the annual Sanlam/Business
Partners Entrepreneur of the
Year® Competition, which was
held in Johannesburg recently.
THE EMERGING ENTREPRENEUR
of the
Year® category which celebrates entrepre-
neurs who have been in business for less than
three years, acknowledges Pepler’s success in
becoming one of the largest light frame steel
construction companies in SouthAfrica in just
a few short years.
While providing conventional construc-
tion services, Silverline Group specialises in
constructing light frame steel structures, a
high-performance environmentally-friendly
alternative building solution not widely used
in South Africa. Modelled on international
best practice used in the USA, Canada, Aus-
tralia, NewZealand and Asia, light frame steel
structures are fast gainingpopularity in South
Africa, as they offer an effective method of
construction that produces no waste and
80% less carbon footprint than conventional
building methodology.
This innovative building method also
reduces constructing time considerably and
as a result, more businesses are opting to
make use of this method as it allows them
to start operating and making a profit much
earlier than expected. A recent example of
this is the new McDonald’s in Goodwood,
CapeTown, whichwas able to open the outlet
four months earlier, compared to the time it
would have taken with traditional brick and
mortar building techniques.
Due to the growing demand for this prod-
uct, Pepler made the decision to franchise
the company, making it the only franchised
construction business in South Africa, and
one of very few in the world. The company
also provides significant support, mentor-
ship and skills training to its more than 30
franchisees, which Pepler believes is a major
factor behind the business’success.
Pepler says that winning the competition
serves as encouragement to further push the
envelope to bemore efficient, more effective
and tomake a greater impact on the environ-
ment, as well as the people and businesses
which benefit from their product.
As a result of Pepler’s achievements,
not only has an alternative and sustainable
construction practice been created within
South Africa, but his company and franchises
Sanlam/Business Partners Entrepreneur of the
Year® winner, Jonathan Pepler.
Emerging entrepreneur
award
are a major contributor to job creation and
economic growth.
According to Kobus Engelbrecht, a mem-
ber of the 2013 Sanlam/Business Partners
Entrepreneur of the Year® judging panel,
Pepler stood out in the Emerging category
due to his exceptionally well executed busi-
ness idea and the enormous growth potential
of the business.
“The building method Pepler uses is not
unique internationally, but within South Af-
rica it is not widely used and he has set out to
successfully convince the major role players
in the local market to accept this building
method. Banks, for instance, chose not to
finance buildings constructed in this way, but
Peplermanaged to convince themotherwise.
“Peplern also successfully franchised his
business, which enabled him to grow it into
a business with a national footprint in a short
space of time andwithout the need for a large
amount of capital,”concludes Engelbrecht.
●
Industry challenges
Fraud and corruption is affecting the ethos
of our society, with a lot of talk and little
action accompanying the growing evi-
dence of corruption. CESA established an
R1-million anticorruption fund in order to
take to take legal action againstmunicipali-
ties and private companies that it suspects
of having acted illegally in the award or se-
curing of contracts. In July, CESA took steps
to lodge its first casewith the regional office
of the Public Protector which involves a
district council. CESA is also engaging with
NationalTreasury to include the concept of
an ‘integrity’ pact into the Public Finance
Management Act and the Municipal
Finance Management Act.
Service delivery, especially at municipal
level remains a critical burning issue. The
consulting engineering industry is threat-
ened by incapacitated local and provincial
governments. Asmajor clients to the indus-
try, it is important that these institutions
become more effective, more proactive in
identifying needs and priorities and more
efficient in project implementation and –
management. Pravin Gordhan made it very
clear that under spending of infrastructure
budgets is a serious concern for the industry,
where only R177-billion of the R266-billion
was spent during 2010/11.
A further challenge to the industry is to
find a way to standardise the procurement
procedures applied by the different govern-
ment departments. Procurement procedures
should be standard for the country, or at
least for the specific tier of government. The
involvement of non-CESA members in gov-
ernment tenders and procurement continues
to threaten the standard and performance
of the industry. Non-Cesa members do not
seem to complywith the same standards and
principles as those firms that aremembers of
CESA. Whether this is linked to complaints
of ‘below cost’ tendering during 2009, is
not certain, but CESA members should be
better informed about engaging in below
cost tendering.
Lack of attention to maintain infrastruc-
ture poses a serious problem for the industry.
Not only is it muchmore costly to build new
infrastructure, but dilapidated infrastructure
hampers economic growth potential. The
cost of resurfacing a road after seven years
at current prices, is estimated at R175 000
per kilometer, compared to R3-million per
kilometer to rebuild, less than 6% of the
constructionprice. Inmany cases, infrastruc-
ture is left to deteriorate to such a state, that
maintenance becomes almost impossible.
In addition to this the quality of technical
personnel is argued by some firms to have
deteriorated, putting greater risk on the
built environment sector.
CESAhas on numerous occasions shown
its support for both the National Develop-
ment Plan and Vision 2030 of South Africa,
which aim to enhance the economy and
eradicate unemployment, poverty and
inequality, but believes that more work has
got to be done at the SIPS level to break-
down these programmes into tangible and
costed projects so that a proper capacity
towards delivery can be measure in terms
of skills and capital resources.
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