Multidisciplinary engineering consulting firm WSP Group Africa has grown in the past seven years in the number of staff it employs as well as in the services it offers its clients, says WSP Group Africa CEO Andrew Mather.

The company offers speciality 
services, including refrigeration consulting, fire consulting and green building design consulting. These divisions operate 
independently, but form part of the larger company, which, Mather points out, is beneficial as it allows WSP to have representation across the different 
divisions.

“WSP is happy with its growth. The group has almost doubled its turnover every year for the past five years and has also opened a new office in Kenya, where it has never been active before,” says Mather.

He says WSP aims to grow organically and through strategic acquisitions, the most recent of which has been a health and safety firm in KwaZulu-Natal. It has also acquired structural 
engineering firms in Cape Town and in the Seychelles islands, as well as a traffic-planning firm, in Tshwane, and a green building consulting company, in Gauteng.

Despite the company’s growth, Mather notes that, given the 
global credit crunch, WSP has had a few projects placed on hold, particularly on the Indian Ocean islands and in Africa.

It has been a challenge when projects have been cancelled, but certain sectors have remained 
active, allowing resources to be reallocated.

The company is involved in a number of projects for the 2010 FIFA soccer World Cup. It is currently carrying out the 
geotechnical, mechanical, electrical and electronic services for the Green Point stadium, in Cape Town, the mechanical services for the Port Elizabeth stadium and the road infrastructure around the Mbombela 
stadium, in Nelspruit. WSP is also involved in the building services for some of the Gautrain rapid rail link stations.

Mather points out that, through the consultancy’s 
involvement in these projects, there is a huge demand for consulting engineering in delivering infrastructure in South Africa and the rest of Africa.

“Although there is still work to be done on developing South Africa’s infrastructure, the infrastructure development backlog in Africa has increased. African countries favour a one-stop-shop solution, which WSP can offer through its different service 
offerings,” says Mather.

WSP is also committed to sustainability and the environment. Mather says that it is one of the few consulting engineering groups that has a full-time sustainability director based in the UK, as well as specialist 
divisions that concentrate on green building design and sustainable master planning.

The company is also a founding sponsor of the Green Building Council of South Africa, which was established last year.

Meanwhile, WSP has sold 26% of its equity in WSP Group Africa to black empowerment group Intsaki and now fully complies with the Department of Trade and Industry’s black economic-empowerment (BEE) codes.

“The partnership with Intsaki allows the company to be well placed to receive more public-sector work taking place,” says Mather.

The company was aiming for a broad-based BEE deal, to include gender equity and 
assist rural communities.

Prior to the partnership, the company adhered to the correct BEE standards by providing training, bursaries and corporate social responsibility programmes.

The company also has a number of staff empowerment programmes, such as its task force forum, in which promising young engineers form a ‘shadow’ board to discuss the same challenges as the WSP board,
motivating, training and retaining young engineers to become directors in the future. The forum is also a platform to provide feedback to management on the 
employee environment.

WSP aims to establish offices in other parts of Africa, where it currently does not have a presence, particularly in English-speaking countries in Africa.

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