Photo by: Duane Daws
Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) has rebranded its yearly conference and exhibition, dubbing the event, which looks to stimulate debate on key issues in the consulting engineering and infrastructure industries, the Cesa Infrastructure Indaba.
The conference, which would be held in Johannesburg on November 9 and 10 under the theme ‘Working Towards Improved Delivery of Infrastructure and Engineering Services’, would see keynote addresses by Transport Minister Dipuo Peters, Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi and Ekurhuleni Mayor Mondli Gungubele.
Topics to be covered at the conference included procurement, service delivery, engineering infrastructure, human capital development, infrastructure funding and corruption.
Cesa noted in a preconference statement on Friday that the National Development Plan would require at least 30% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to be spent on infrastructure development for the strategic national goal of achieving economic growth of between 5% and 7% a year by 2030 to be realised.
South Africa was currently only spending 22.9% of GDP on infrastructure, with the public sector contributing 13.95% and the private sector 8.95%. The respective targets for the public and private sectors were 20% and 10%.
“Successful infrastructure development can only happen when the government and private sectors come together in a true partnership and complement each other.
“Although it may not attract as many votes, increased government expenditure on infrastructure provision is the quickest and most effective path to turning South Africa’s economy around and accelerating service delivery,” Cesa said in a statement.