WIDENING SCOPE
Government moves to limit water crisis with launch of new project
THE GOVERNMENT has added a new strategic infrastructure project (SIP) to the existing 18 SIPs to deal with the issue of water and sanitation and the construction of dams.
Thulas Nxesi, the Public Works Minister, said that this new SIP had been created to try to prevent having the same crisis in water that had occurred in energy because of poor planning.
Nxesi told a construction and concrete conference in Sandton that the government infrastructure expenditure was not declining but taking different forms.
He said: “I can confidently assert, from the side of the PICC (Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission) that current construction spend amounts to around R1 trillion and is generating 220 000 jobs.
“Major projects in the energy, transport, water and sanitation sectors are currently in the pipeline and are being assessed for their catalytic effect on wider socioeconomic development – and these projects are being considered for fast-tracking.”
Nxesi added that the PICC was intent on fast-tracking and removing obstacles to the rollout of construction projects and the government was also moving into a much longerterm planning mode to project supply and demand over the next 15 years.
Countering the view that infrastructure expenditure was
Major projects … are currently in the pipeline and are being assessed for their catalytic effect.
declining, Nxesi said much of the expenditure in relation to large water and energy projects at this stage was going into equipment and machinery rather than bricks and mortar.
Nxesi also stressed that the “high margins which characterised the 2010 (World Cup) stadium build is a thing of the past” because then everybody had to deliver a project in a short space of time whatever the cost. He said much of the infrastructure expenditure was also more thinly spread across the rural and outer-lying areas of South Africa, for example in the building and renovation of rural schools, and was “simply less visible to the eye of those of us located in Sandton and Midrand”.
Nxesi said there was a need for the government and the private sector to better share the risk on infrastructure projects, stressing that the government could not be expected to take all the risk and the private sector the profits.
He said there was also a need for the public and private sector to work together to eliminate collusion in the construction industry and establish a zero tolerance for corruption.
Corruption
Nxesi said the Public Works Department had prioritise the fight against fraud and corruption and had investigated 289 internal allegations of fraud and corruption, which resulted in 129 disciplinary actions and 18 criminal referrals to the SA Police Services.
He said the special investigating unit had also investigated 39 separate matters and recommended disciplinary action against 41 officials, of which three had resigned, seven senior officials had been dismissed, seven received final written warnings and the rest were still in (the) process.
His department was also launching “Operation Bring Back” to reclaim state properties that had been misappropriated or unlawfully occupied.
“More than 1 000 properties have been identified. The first National Operation Bring Back Forum will convene next month.