Engineering the Future Part 1

By PR

Consulting Engineers South Africa’s (CESA) annual Infrastructure Indaba, held last week in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal, unpacked the role that engineers continue to play in developing South Africa’s infrastructure

CESA aims to continue to collaborate with various industry stakeholders that are participating in the Infrastructure Indaba, in order to gain greater public sector confidence and trust

True economic transformation will only be achieved by embracing legislation, and by how well organisations can transform the lives of the less marginalized in a way that matters – that is true economic transformation

Engineering the Future – CESA’s annual Infrastructure Indaba unpacks professionalisation, transformation in South Africa’s built environment. Part 1 of a two-part article.

Consulting Engineers South Africa’s (CESA) annual Infrastructure Indaba, held last week in Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal, unpacked the role that engineers continue to play in developing South Africa’s infrastructure, which provides the foundation for sustainable development enabling economic growth for future generations to come.

The theme for this year’s Indaba, which is being held from the 9 -10th March, is ’Engineering the Future Now’. It provides a platform for stakeholders from all sectors of the built environment to come together and share knowledge and best practice aimed at ensuring the provision of value-for-money infrastructure for economic development and prosperity.

The Infrastructure Indaba was officially opened by Chris Campbell, CEO of CESA. Olu Soluade, CESA President, during the first session, “Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan – Infrastructure Delivery and Maintenance of Public Assets”, called for government’s enhanced focus on ‘professionalizing the state’ to enable the right people with the requisite skills, experience and competencies being placed in key positions.

“This will ensure that money is spent in a cost-effective manner for both the social and economic benefit of the people of our country. As an industry organization, our mandate is to lobby for positive change within the regulatory environment to enable our members better serve society,” he added.

In the focused discussion on “Building a capable state – Engineering Skills – Professionalisation of engineering services in the public and private sector,” Professor Mohamed Mostafa, an academic leader (Agri/Civil Eng & LS/CS) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, emphasized that to enable sustainable development, our country needed to drive centres of excellence across various sectors. The lack of which would continue to impact service delivery in the country to those who needed it the most: “Poor infrastructure is a serious challenge to the development of communities and economic progress. It changes the lives of communities drastically and contributes to increased poverty.”

In driving sustainability and excellence in this country, he believed there was an urgent need to eradicate corruption, lack of accountability and mismanagement; as well as to enhance the capability and competency of professionals in the public sector, with particular reference to the inclusion of engineers in this space.

“The interference of politics to critical decision making related to the built environment must change as it is not based on engineering.  Tenders are run by non-technical individuals, i.e., not engineers, and there is no consideration for quality, functionality, qualifications and technical merits. To address the risk of infrastructure collapsing, we need qualified, competent and professionally registered engineers in important positions across the public space.”

Steven Kaplan, 2023 President of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE), highlighted key challenges in the country’s infrastructure space from the recently published 2022 Infrastructure Report Card. He also highlighted the need for appropriately qualified and professionally registered technical people back into the system to plan, identify, procure and manage large-spend engineering projects to unlock the economy.  Campbell added that CESA aims to continue to collaborate with various industry stakeholders that are participating in the Infrastructure Indaba, in order to gain greater public sector confidence and trust. “This will ensure that our intentions are simply that of partnering to optimise the outcomes of infrastructure delivery for the benefit of our people and the economy.”