Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa), which represents about 500 member firms, has called for the creation of a dedicated fund to support the maintenance of municipal infrastructure, the deterioration of which has been blamed for a number of recent service delivery protests.

Cesa president Abe Thela said on Wednesday that the premature failure of infrastructure as a result of poor maintenance was placing pressure on already strained municipal budgets. It was also leading to the disruption of services, which, in turn, was contributing to protest action and a decline in investor confidence.

A recent analysis by Municipal IQ showed that there were 155 service-delivery protests in 2013 – a figure that was only slightly lower than the protest peak of 173 recorded in 2012. There had also been a surge in protest activity at the start of 2014, with many protests turning violent.

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Lechesa Tsenoli expressed serious concern on Wednesday over the loss of life, violence and destruction of property that had accompanied the recent protests. He also acknowledged that the unrest had arisen as a result of “poor or no service delivery”, as well as alleged corruption, in the areas of water, housing, sanitation and electricity.

The Minister said his department was working with all spheres of government to implement appropriate interventions and he also promised to strengthen and improve “public liaison, consultation and participation”.

Thela said the fund concept would be canvassed initially with the South African Local Government Association, but he also indicated that Cesa felt it should be capitalised primarily through government fiscal resources.

“Costs associated with maintenance are a fraction of reconstruction costs once the infrastructure has collapsed,” he stressed.

The organisation, whose members are involved in the design and implementation of public and private infrastructure projects, also appealed for greater priority to be given to the staffing of municipal maintenance teams with experienced technicians.

However, it also argued that the domestic consulting sector had capacity that could be drawn on to bolster technical expertise within local government. Its member firms collectively employed 24 350 people and reported combined revenues of around R20.4-billion in 2013. But capacity utilisation stood at 91%, implying spare capacity of 9%.

Cesa was equally strident in its appeal for government departments and State-owned companies to deliver on the R827-billion infrastructure promise for the coming three years, arguing that persistent underspending “robs the nation of much needed infrastructure and, in the long term, impacts negatively on the National Development Plan (NDP)”.

However, Thela acknowledged that it was “highly unlikely” that infrastructure budgets would be spent as advertised, owing to poor planning, a lack of technical capacity in the public sector and corruption.

Cesa calculated that infrastructure spending by the public sector between 2010 and 2013 was R642-billion against a target of R846-billion, or actual expenditure of 76% against the allocated budget.

“Addressing this underspending should be one of the top priorities for the implementation of the NDP.”