SA’s master builder
Cyril Ramaphosa’s new infrastructure tsar has a long list of projects to get off the ground, and a host of meetings to attend. Caiphus Kgosana caught Kgosientso Ramokgopa between appointments to ask him about his new job
Kgosientso Ramokgopa has kept me and photographer Masi Losi waiting for about half an hour in his office in the Union Buildings, on the second floor of the east wing. We are not complaining. A balcony overlooks the Union Buildings gardens and the jacarandas are in full bloom.
Our appointment was for 2pm, but he has apologised via his personal assistant. One meeting is running late. We understand; he has been given the most important technocratic job in the country. He will spend a lot time in meetings.
He emerges, apologising in person, and looking dapper in a denim-coloured twopiece suit with concealed check patterns, and a buttoned-up white shirt. He has just moved office from the west to the east wing, which explains the clutter of files and boxes.
The former executive mayor of Tshwane had bad and good luck in a week last year. He had settled in as the MEC for economic development in Gauteng when the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) threw him a curveball. The women’s league was unhappy that male MECs outnumbered females in premier David Makhura’s Gauteng executive. One male had to make way. There are different versions on what happened, depending on whom you believe.
I received an SOS from the president to say come and assist
Ramokgopa says he volunteered. “If you don’t comply [with the NEC instruction] you might be misunderstood to imply you don’t think there are capable female comrades who can execute an executive function. It goes against the grain of the ANC. It would create an impression that there is some form of Gauteng exceptionalism.” He agreed to go.
Other insiders say Makhura wanted to offer up local government MEC Lebogang Maile, with whom he’d had a fallout. Maile’s supporters on the provincial executive were said to have argued strongly for him to stay.
As luck would have it, just as Ramokgopa was preparing to leave, President Cyril Ramaphosa was scouting for someone to head the new-infrastructure & investment unit in the presidency.
Ramaphosa probably could not believe his luck: the respected ex-mayor of
Tshwane, who ticked all the right boxes, had suddenly become available. Ramokgopa is an engineer, has a PhD in public administration and is an activist who grew up in the ANC and serves on its Gauteng executive. He is not just another deployed cadre. He also oversaw a city with a R35bn budget.
“I would have wanted ordinarily to remain [as MEC] but ... I received an SOS from the president to say come and assist, we are establishing this office.”
Ramokgopa headed back to the capital, this time to work in the most powerful office.
“This is a national picture and not just Gauteng- focused,” he said. “It also happens that infrastructure is at the forefront of recovery efforts. There’s greater scrutiny, a bigger responsibility here.”
Ramaphosa has hedged his presidency on economic recovery, and infrastructure is at the heart of that recovery. In their first meeting the president outlined to his new infrastructure tsar his dream of building roads, dams, houses, bridges and connecting people to high-speed networks. But there is a catch. Public finances are stretched, and the state cannot afford all these projects. They have to be funded by the private sector.
He tasked Ramokgopa with identifying a pipeline of bankable, viable and executable infrastructure projects that would jumpstart demand for locally manufactured materials and components, create thousands of jobs, re-energise the economy, and make a difference in people’s lives. With the infrastructure function having moved to the department of public works,
Ramokgopa would closely work with minister Patricia de Lille to set up Infrastructure SA to oversee government projects and staff it with bright minds who have the technical and financial know-how to execute these specialised projects. Ramokgopa is acting head of that agency.
In February, the president called a meeting of private sector funders to sell them the idea of partnering with the government to turn SA into a mega
construction site and revitalise the economy. The funders included banks, development finance institutions and multilateral financiers. He convinced them to lend their technical experts to work with
Infrastructure SA to identify and co-manage capital projects funded by their own institutions. The priority would be network industries: water, energy, transport, information & communication technologies, human settlements, agriculture and agroprocessing.
“Those sectors have shown themselves to have a higher multiplying factor. They can employ a lot of people in their construction phase. They are also helping you to resolve inequality. Investments in water or electricity in rural areas mean that those rural areas that didn’t have [these resources] get to benefit,” Ramokgopa said.
Because they are paid for by the private sector, the projects must be able to make money and repay themselves.
After numerous discussions with stateowned entities, the national government, provinces and municipalities, 276 projects valued at R2.3-trillion were identified. But a massive chunk was not investment-ready and
needed more work. The list was whittled down to 88 projects that met the requirements. Experts trimmed the number to 50, valued at R340bn.
“We presented them to the banks. They came back and said, we will fund them.”
In July, De Lille gazetted the 50 projects that have the potential to create 50,000 jobs. It is these that are at the core of
Ramaphosa’s economic recovery plan.
The private funders have set one condition: the government must provide written guarantees that the money the funders invest will be repaid in full should anything happen. These are referred to in financial terms as credit enhancement instruments.
Ramaphosa inaugurated the first of these capital projects, the Mooikloof Mega City development. It is a planned public-private partnership in Tshwane worth R84bn and will have 50,000 houses. It is expected to generate 290,000 jobs during its construction.
The N2 Nodal development in the Eastern Cape is another huge housing project, which will cost R44bn.
In the water sector, construction of the second phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, valued at R32bn, is now awaiting a credit
enhancement instrument from the National Treasury.
Other projects include the upgrading of national highways. Among these are the N1 Winburg interchange in the Free State; N1 Musina ring road in Limpopo; N2 Mtunzini toll plaza to the Empangeni T-junction in KwaZulu-Natal; and the N3 Paradise Valley to Mariannhill toll plaza in KZN.
In the agro-processing sector there is the tilapia fish project in the Eastern Cape and a natural dehydrated foods project in Mpumalanga.
But if these projects are paid for by the local private sector and international investors, what is the role of the government?
Ramokgopa and his team’s most important role is untying the red tape that often frustrates projects of this magnitude. Housing projects need bulk infrastructure, which is a municipal function. When a municipality does not have the budget, the infrastructure and investment team intervenes. “We sit with National Treasury to work out how to fund that bulk infrastructure,” said Ramokgopa.
When a project is being frustrated by bickering between state agencies, or a misunderstanding between different provinces, or between provinces and
municipalities, Ramokgopa’s team uses its connection with the presidency to quickly convene meetings and resolve clashes so that projects can continue. When environment-impact assessments and water-use licences take forever to be approved, the teamintervenes to speed up the bureaucratic processes.
“When the presidency comes in we find that people soften up and we are able to make progress.”
The team also monitors the infrastructure projects to ensure that the state does not overpay, that at least 40% locally manufactured components are used on site, and that contractors prioritise local labour and local suppliers.
When it comes to frequently constructed public assets such as schools, clinics, halls, police stations etc, the team has created uniform tender and construction specifications that will save the state not just money, but drastically reduce approval and construction timelines.
“You had instances where a school costs R45m in one province and R100m in another. There has to be uniformity of frequently used public assets. We have offthe-shelf templates on specs and fees, so government is now saving money on professional fees and construction fees.”
What about rent-seeking? How do you prevent corruption?
“We can’t guarantee they will be 100% insulated, but these chaps who brought their R340bn say they don’t want their money to disappear or their names associated with corruption, so all the funders insist on seeing the projects through,” said Ramokgopa.
His team is working on the open tender system used by the Gauteng government to eliminate criminal collusion in big projects. Auditors will audit mid-project rather than afterwards, which is currently the case.
He said they were also planning to use artificial intelligence to monitor and eliminate administrative bottlenecks that can delay critical projects.
“Sometimes processes run, and a letter of appointment is issued but is sitting with a junior official, who wants a bribe from the developer. Automation means we can track the letter and see where is it in real time.
That way we can go to that official and demand to know why they are not releasing it.”
But Gauteng still became entangled in personal protective equipment procurement corruption despite such checks.
He composes himself to formulate a diplomatic answer. It was unfortunate, he said, that the province found itself at the centre of the scandal. “Brand Gauteng has been soiled. Remember that Gauteng was considered a bastion of ANC values. We had distinguished ourselves as one of the most morally upright provinces.”
His record in the City of Tshwane was soiled by a R2bn contract awarded for the installation of 43,000 smart meters. The city cancelled the controversial project, and the contract was eventually nullified in court. Although investigations could not find direct links to him in the awarding of the contract, Ramokgopa concedes that mistakes were made.
“I think we could have handled the smart-meter issue better. After the auditorgeneral made findings, we cancelled the project in 2015 and agreed to run a new process to appoint a different operator. Went to court and it was nullified. Yes, we were in the wrong and admitted it.”
Ramokgopa is saddened by the infighting in the Tshwane municipality, which was governed through a shaky coalition before being placed under administration by the province. He believes that as democracy matures and voters make different electoral choices, political parties have to learn to cogovern without the resultant instability.
“We must mature to stable coalitions. They are a manifestation of the maturity of democracy at local government level where people are expressing their choices freely. As the ANC, we have come to accept that.”
What does the future hold for him?
Public office or on the administrative side?
“I’m an activist. I never saw myself as a politician. A politician builds a career out of politics and gets his principal income from it. I don’t see myself as a career politician. It was easy for me to make the transition from MEC to come here ... I want to make a difference.”
After a brief photo shoot, he excuses himself and heads to another meeting.
I’m an activist. I don’t see myself as a career politician. I want to make a difference