Engineers warn of infrastructure danger
SA’s public infrastructure is not coping with normal demand and is poorly maintained, says the latest report by the SA Institution of Civil Engineering. The report says the public will probably be subjected to severe inconvenience and even danger if prompt action is not taken.
SA’s public infrastructure is not coping with normal demand and is poorly maintained, says the latest report by the SA Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE).
The infrastructure report says the public will probably be subjected to severe inconvenience and even danger if prompt action is not taken.
The government’s proposed economic recovery plan has emphasised investment in infrastructure as crucial for growth, yet investment continues to fall, the report warns.
The infrastructure report card, the fourth since surveying began in 2006, gives insight into gradings for 15 sectors of infrastructure: water, sanitation, solid waste management, roads, airports, ports, coastal management, rail, pipelines (oil and gas), electricity supply, ICT, health care, public ordinary schools, TVET colleges and universities and fire.
The report grades sectors from A to E, with A the most efficient infrastructure that is well maintained and competes with international standards, and E the lowest for dilapidated infrastructure that is unfit for purpose. It says overall grade for public infrastructure fell further to Dfrom a D+ in the previous report, the lowest grade yet recorded by SAICE and of great concern.
“Since our first report in 2006, the condition of infrastructure has been in steady decline.” Such a dire state of investment explains blackouts, water shortages and service delivery protests. For the present period, only three subsectors show improvement: increased access to sanitation, drinking water and transport all showed a rising trend. Similarly, major oil and gas pipelines and the ICT network are in excellent condition. The Airports Company SA kept its airports in fair condition despite the most challenging years of its existence with Covid-19 lockdowns, the report says. Universities and colleges also showed that they could manage infrastructure projects successfully, it says.
“For the current period, only three subsectors show improvement while 12 have deteriorated.” Of the 13 subsector grades that remain unchanged, 10 were already at risk of failure or worse.
Neglect of maintenance is the most persistent problem in all four reports to date. The SAICE report says the majority of municipalities, and even provincial owners of infrastructure, continued to manage assets reactively by responding to breakdowns or failures.
Highlighting the tightly woven interdependency between all public infrastructure facilities, the data shows that with the notable exception of energy generation, SA’s economic infrastructure remains in a satisfactory condition. However, social infrastructure continues to deteriorate.
Problems are made worse by crime and nonpayment for services. Weak institutions lacking appropriate skills and accurate data contributed towards further deterioration in infrastructure since the previous SAICE infrastructure report card.
The report warns that muchneeded investment in infrastructure waned. After peaking at 22% of GDP in 2008, capital investment fell to 13.7% by 2020, two-thirds of which was attributed to the private sector. This is less than half the targeted 30% of GDP called for by the National Development Plan.
To achieve its target, the Treasury estimates that from 2020 to 2030, investment in infrastructure must rise significantly, from 3.9% to 10% of GDP for the public sector and from 9.8% to 20% of GDP for the private sector.
The SAICE report attributes government laxness in investing in new infrastructure largely to weak economic growth and additional financial bailouts for struggling parastatals.
Cautioning that delaying investment in maintenance places the entire portfolio of public assets at risk of dysfunction, the report, backed by SAICE’s 15,500 members, calls on the government to take steps to boost investor confidence.
“Altogether, the situation cries out for urgent and sustained attention,” the report warns. When public infrastructure is inadequate or unreliable, resulting disruptions occur at a net cost to the fiscus and weaken the developmental role of the state.
Thus, there was a need to channel major capital investment into increasing cargo handling capacity at the country’s ports as well as investment in the railway and maintenance of electricity distributors.
Despite R812bn being earmarked for infrastructure over the 2022 medium-term expenditure framework period by the state, the report cautions that this is also “an attractive reservoir for the criminally crafty to devise schemes of extraction”.
The report calls on the government to stamp out corruption in procurement of infrastructure and allocation of contracts — issues highlighted in the state capture report — by employing competent and ethical executives for state institutions, which must themselves have strong governance and management systems.