South Africa has a clear policy vision – but there’s room to strengthen how it puts its plans into action.
In 2022, the South African government approved the first and second phases of the National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) 2050.
The plan is a response to South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP), which highlights challenges the country faces, from economy and employment to social division.
The NIP was developed to help overcome these challenges by supporting infrastructure development.
The plan includes strengthening institutional knowledge about planning, monitoring, and budgeting.
It also covers areas affected by infrastructure such as health, urban development, and agriculture.
The plan is in place – what about implementation?
Although South Africa has two concrete infrastructure strategies, the government has faced challenges implementing them.
South Africa has previously responded to this issue by publishing an emergency plan addressing its infrastructure pipeline.
Earlier this month, we sat down with Alain Jacquet, ICE country representative for South Africa and chair of ICE-SA, a joint division of the ICE and the South African Institution of Civil Engineers (SAICE).
Alain shared insights about his country’s infrastructure plans and challenges around delivery.
What are the major challenges?
The NDP and the NIP have clarified the actions needed to improve public infrastructure.
There’s little coordination between the national government and local and regional governments, which has caused two key issues:
- Local and regional governments being unclear on how to implement infrastructure projects that have been budgeted for, which often results in unused funds being sent back to the treasury.
- A lack of built environment professionals, including engineers at local authority level. As a result, there’s a lack of understanding of the planning process and how to use money provided by the national government.
What are South Africa’s infrastructure needs?
Limited direction for local and regional governments and limited technical skills have resulted in infrastructure maintenance concerns.
This has affected the following areas:
1. Electricity
Due to the lack of transformer maintenance in local authorities, there are many power outages.
Blackouts have lasted up to 12 hours per day where local authorities battle to restore power due to older infrastructure and the large number of simultaneous outages.
Much of this has been the result of rolling blackouts (loadshedding) that was implemented due to electricity supply constraints from Eskom, the public utility company.
2. Water supply
South Africa has plenty of water and dams, but pipes used to convey water to households need properly maintenance to eliminate water shortages.
Replacement of key supply valves has resulted in water outages to large parts of cities for up to five days.
Some smaller rural communities suffer from no piped water supply.
3. Wastewater treatment
Treatment plants need to be better cleaned, serviced, and maintained to ensure sewage is treated properly.
The lack of maintenance has resulted in leakages and discharges into waterways, contaminating beaches and polluting rivers.
This has been made worse by recent floods which caused severe damage to wastewater treatment works with repairs taking months and sometimes years.
How can the Enabling Better Infrastructure (EBI) programme help?
South Africa’s national plans already incorporate many aspects of EBI guidance.
For example, by introducing the NIP, South Africa has followed principle 1 of the EBI guidance, which encourages governments to create a clear vision.
This has enabled South Africa to identify the critical actions needed for sustained improvement in public infrastructure delivery by 2050.
To implement South Africa’s plans, the government can look to principle 4 of the EBI guidance for inspiration.
This principle requires governments to consider the skills and professional development needed to deliver success.
South Africa has recognised this and put a plan in place for professionalising the public service.
South Africa needs more help to ensure that only people with the right skills and knowledge can help implement infrastructure projects.
The South African Council for the Built Environment, supported by other industry councils, has prepared a framework for identification of work to be reserved for professionally registered persons. This complex framework will be rolled out soon.
