South African Institution of Civil Engineering (Saice) president Seetella Makhetha has urged government to invest on a larger scale in infrastructure projects, such as witnessed during the period leading to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

He was speaking at the Saice Awards ceremony to honour excellence in the civil engineering fraternity, in October, in Gauteng.

The awards recognised community-based and technical excellence projects across South Africa. Makhetha opened the awards ceremony with the ‘I am an engineer’ poem to instil pride among civil engineers, which, he believes is slowly fading.

He said civil engineers were agents for change and for creating better habitation for human beings. “There is a need to vitalise the science principles and ethos of the civil engineering industry to avoid corruption, which is negatively affecting the growth of the sector.”

Saice CEO Manglin Pillay said the country’s infrastructure development is significant to the growth of the civil engineering industry.

The award for the 2010/11 most outstanding civil engineering project went to the Blackburn pedestrian bridge, located across the N2 freeway at Umhlanga, in KwaZulu-Natal. The bridge is cable-stayed with a 2 km con- crete walkway. It addresses the life-threat- ening situation that was previously faced by the community of the Blackburn informal settlement. Community members had to cross the busy freeway daily and this often resulted in loss of life.

The joint winners for the technical excellence projects were the 101-m-long Buitengracht structural steel pedestrian bridge and the Granger Bay Boulevard and Green Point roundabout, both in Cape Town, which were constructed as part of the 2010 FIFA World Cup infrastructure projects.

Commendation went to the Warwick Triangle viaduct (outbound), in eThekwini, KwaZulu-Natal, which crosses over the busiest trading and transport hub in Africa and improves the life of about 460 000 commuters travelling through the Warwick Triangle precinct daily.

The civil engineering accolade went to the Gautrain project, an 80 km modern high- speed rapid rail network.

Individual award winners included Andrew McKune, young civil engineer of the year; Trevor Ncalo, technician/technologist achiever of the year; and Dr Christopher Herold, engineer of the year. Other awards went to the University of Cape Town for student chapter of the year; Saice Durban for branch of the year; and the Saice Geotechnical engineering division for Saice division of the year.

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