By Olebogeng Manhe, Chairman of the Gap Infrastructure Corporation (GIC)

28 July 2026: South Africa has made real progress in improving the environment for infrastructure investment over the last couple of years. Amendments to National Treasury Regulation 16, broader PPP reforms, simpler approval processes, and more room for private participation have started to clear some of the blockages that made public infrastructure too difficult for investors, developers, and delivery partners to move with confidence in the past.

The sector largely welcomes these reforms because they confront frustrations that have held back infrastructure delivery for many years. Too many viable projects have been forced to labour under heavy approval burdens, rigid processes, and uncertainty about the role of private capital, leaving good plans abandoned for too long.

A more workable regulatory environment gives South Africa a stronger chance of taking infrastructure out of the planning phase and putting it where our people can utilise it. We're already seeing a change happening in the industry, with new project announcements from the public and private sectors reaching R705.6 billion in 2025, up 16.4% on the year before, with private sector announcements alone more than tripling to R382.5 billion.

That is real movement, and proof that the pipeline has started to breathe again. However, although the country is rebuilding momentum, private capital is still not moving at the level needed to match the scale of these projects. Every project now must come forward with a structure strong enough for private capital to move at the scale the country requires.

To turn that interest into funded work, six practical requirements must be settled before investors are asked to commit:

1. Prepare projects properly before approaching capital

Institutional investors, development finance institutions, and private partners are looking for infrastructure with long-term value, credible governance, and reliable performance. But they will not gamble their capital on broken structures, weak accountability, or projects that arrive half-prepared. They need trust before they deploy funds, especially when public assets, multiple partners, long construction periods, and serious risk are involved.

2. Make each project strong enough to be assessed on its own merits

Investors want to know who owns the mandate, who takes decisions, how procurement will be protected, how construction will be sequenced, and who will answer if things go wrong. A strong national reform environment can open the gate, but it cannot become a shield for poor preparation, wasteful thinking, or reckless project structuring.

3. Bring clear governance, responsibilities, and financial models to market

Projects must come to the market with transparent governance, realistic delivery plans, defined responsibilities, and structured financial models that investors can test properly. Private capital needs to understand the project before it can trust it as an investment. That trust will only come from serious perpetration, honest accountability, and the hard work of turning commitments into infrastructure our people can see, use, and take pride in.

4. Build delivery control into the project from the beginning

Design work, procurement, funding, approvals, construction sequencing, and stakeholder management cannot be treated like separate problems that will be fixed later. That is how projects lose time and credibility is stolen from good plans. By the time construction begins, the major delivery questions should already have clear answers.

5. Allocate risk clearly between public and private partners

Public and private partners must know who carries which risks, how those risks will be managed, and what happens when conditions change. When risk is left unclear, investors become cautious because no serious investor wants to walk into confusion. When risk is properly allocated, partners can price, manage, and commit with greater confidence.

6. Maintain compliance and performance beyond financial close

Infrastructure must still perform after construction and continue to meet the needs of the community, municipalities, and investors for years. Reporting standards, technical compliance, maintenance obligations, risk management, and asset performance must remain reliable throughout the life of the project. Investors are more likely to commit when they can see how performance will be measured and protected after the ribbon has been cut.

South Africa has already done important work by improving the rules around infrastructure investment. Now the fight moves to the project level. Every project that enters the pipeline must be structured in a way that allows investors to assess, trust, and commit to it without fearing that weak preparation could later become their burden. The country has the regulatory framework and investor appetite to drive far more significant infrastructure development but now needs to make individual projects investable enough to carry that capital into real assets on the ground.