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Growing need to build capacity to support infrastructure ambitions

Experts discuss capacity building in the infrastructure sector.

4th April 2014

By: Zandile Mavuso

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Features

  

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While capacity building in South Africa’s infrastructure sector remains important with regard to the economic growth of the country, the Black Business Council notes that government does not have enough capacity to ensure service delivery that will drive economic growth in the sector.

Speaking at the Infrastructure Dialogue at the Development Bank of South Africa in Midrand last month, Black Business Council policy and research executive Pule Mokoena pointed out that capacity building must be led by government in a developing State to ensure that it delivered on its mandate to provide infrastructure that will ensure better living for all South Africans.

“We need people who are well capacitated to run infrastructure projects as we currently have good plans to drive infrastructure development in the country, but there is no implementation of these plans because the resources fall into the hands of people who are not qualified to head such projects,” he highlighted.

Although the Infrastructure Dialogue is themed Infrastructure Sector Capacity Support: Laying foundations for growth or pouring resources into a bottomless pit?, Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (Misa) capacity building unit head Zakhele Mnqayi stated that although resources were not poured into a bottomless pit, more still needed to be done to ensure that competent personnel headed infrastructure projects to complete and develop the projects accordingly.

“Following the series of strikes in 2008 and 2009, as a result of a lack of service delivery by municipalities, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs mandated Misa to assist municipalities in building capacity to undertake the effective planning, delivery, operation and management of municipal infrastructure,” said Mnqayi.

He further highlighted that the support Misa provided for municipalities with regard to capacity building for the infrastructure sector dealt with the technical capacity of the projects.

After investigating the reasons for the lack of service delivery by the municipalities, the most evident problem was identified as the lack of skilled and qualified individuals to lead the infrastructure projects.

As a result, Misa developed programmes to deal with the lack of municipal infrastructure development.

“We have an artisan apprentice programme that deals with the maintenance issues of projects at municipalities. The programme will run for three years, after which the apprentices will be deployed to the municipalities, where they will apply the skills they have learned through the programme.

“Also, having realised that there is a lack of management skills, we have a technical programme that focuses on asset management, through which we provide bursaries for university students to study asset management and upon graduation, they will be employed by the municipalities,” Mnqayi explained.

Mokoena commended Misa for its implementation of these programmes and highlighted that the programmes will deal with the issue of a lack of capacity in the infrastructure sector to ensure a capacitated State.

National Treasury senior technical advisor for infrastructure and rural development, technical assistance unit Jeremy Timm commented at the Infrastructure Dialogue that, to achieve sustainability in performance and capacity building, capacity had to be built in individuals and organisations.

“At an individual level, we have to start by educating individuals to run such projects and ensure that they are well equipped. At an organisational level, the management of projects is key and the environment in which people work in makes the difference,” said Timm.

He concluded by saying that if individual and organisational capacity was addressed, the sector would start to get an understanding of the importance of employing competent and qualified people to head such projects, which would result in efficient delivery of infrastructure projects.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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