Manglin Pillay
Eighty per cent of respondents to the latest Professional Provident Society (PPS) survey believe government will not allocate sufficient funds for projects needed to tackle South Africa’s electricity and water crises.
South African Institution of Civil Engineering CEO Manglin Pillay commented on Monday that engineering firms in the public sector had made greater efforts to attract qualified, senior and registered civil engineering professionals into their ranks to make the public sector an employer of choice for engineers.
He explained that the number of qualified engineering practitioners in infrastructure ministry departments had dwindled substantially and employees without suitable technical training had replaced qualified engineering employees.
Only 67% of respondents to the survey, in which nearly 600 engineering professionals participated, indicated that they would remain in the country for the foreseeable future, while 61% of the respondents said there were not enough opportunities for young engineers in the profession.
“When young engineers do find employment . . . senior engineers lack the time to properly mentor them. It is only through appropriate mentorship and supervision that young graduate engineers will be able to register as professionals with the Engineering Council of South Africa, which ironically inhibits transformation in this sector,” he stated.
In the 2016 Budget Speech, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan allocated R870-billion to infrastructure projects in accordance with the National Development Plan.
PPS professional associations manager Macy Seperepere noted that the survey revealed that only 35% of engineers felt government was effectively delivering on its promises on infrastructure spend.
“The respondents’ confidence level for this specific question has been deteriorating over the past three years,” she added.
Pillay said the engineering industry would like to see more projects rolled out in terms of actual spend on service delivery projects in the form of both social and economic infrastructure, which “would have a direct impact on the lives of all citizens.”
“Many civil engineering and construction companies had to lay off experienced engineers owing to the lack of project roll-out, with government being the biggest client of all engineering companies in the country. This presents an opportunity for municipalities, provincial and national government to attract these skills back to government.”
Seperepere said it was positive to note, however, that the survey revealed a 75% confidence level among respondents about the future of the engineering profession over the next five years, and 69% of respondents indicated that they would encourage their children to enter the profession.