The Council for the Built Environment (CBE) noted during a May 20 joint meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Infrastructure and the Select Committee on Transport, Public Service and Administration that it had amended its vision and mission to overcome challenges faced by the industry.

CBE CEO Priscilla Mdlalose said the CBE's mission to the year 2035 involved re-engineering its business value.

“We cannot continue with business as usual. We need to re-strategise and see how we can re-capacitate ourselves so we are able to deal with the challenges that are arising.”

One of the areas of focus is transformation. “Transformation is key to our mandate,” she said, adding that transformation had to be driven by the CBE and its six councils, but also within its voluntary associations.

The CBE also wants to strengthen its research and advisory role. “We have a role to play in terms of advising the [Public Works and Infrastructure] Minister and other Ministers on the issues that relate to the built environment.”

In developing the CBE outcomes, Mdlalose said the institution focused on ensuring its outcomes aligned with those of the National Development Plan’s (NDP’s) priorities and outcomes, as well as those of the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI).

“The first priority is [to create] an enhanced and functioning CBE – we cannot change our environment if we are not capacitated as the CBE,” she said, adding that the council had to ensure its processes were aligned correctly and able to bring about the change desired.

Another CBE outcome – a transformed built environment – aligned with the NDP's first priority of economic transformation and job creation, as well as the NDP's desired outcome of increased ownership and participation by historically disadvantaged individuals.

The CBE’s outcome of developing skilled built environment professionals aligned with the NDP's second priority of education, skills and health, as well as the NDP's desired outcome of improved education, training, innovation, and improved employability of youth through skills training.

It also aligns itself with the DPWI’s desired outcome of a transformed built environment.

Further, Mdlalose pointed out that the CBE also aimed to develop its ability to make informed decisions. This aligns with the NDP’s sixth priority of building a capable, ethical and developmental State, as well as the NDP's desired outcome of developing ethical, efficient operations and effective accountability mechanisms.

In terms of building public interest in the built environment, the CBE aims to promote and protect this aspect and has therefore aligned itself with the DPWI’s desired outcome of developing a resilient, ethical and capable department.

In this regard, she said the CBE had conducted a situational analysis of the external environment factors, which looked into the critical challenges faced by the construction sector.

One of these is a current outcry from role-players in the built environment that the state of the economy is affecting the South African construction sector.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa, she said, the construction industry employed about 8% of the country’s labour force. “But that is likely to change post-Covid-19.”

When the CBE prepared its strategy, she says construction output accounted for 4% of gross domestic product; however, Mdlalose stated that the council did not know where the industry currently stood and said things would continue to change during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The situation is having a negative impact on CBE programmes because we depend on the companies to assist us to transform the industry.”