In its quest to mitigate the challenges that consulting engineers face, Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) CEO Chris Campbell says Cesa has developed a healthy working relationship with the National Treasury.
Owing to a slowdown in infrastructureprojects, Cesa has provided support to the National Treasury in its roll-out of the new standard for infrastructure and procurement delivery management, which started in 2016.
Campbell explains that the Standard for Infrastructure Procurement and Delivery Management is a locally developed standard which details a project lifecycle process that has to be adopted by public sector entities for large projects to mitigate against cost overruns and projects being delivered beyond the planned time.
“This standard will also enable public sector procurement practitioners to differentiate between the process of procuring professional services and general goods as the practice in the past has been to opt for the least cost, and often the service delivery is compromised.”
The monitoring body of the standard will be National Treasury and the objective is to get value-for-money professional services.“We see this standard as an instrument that will give public-sector client bodies more guidance and ensure that when processes are correctly applied, they derive the best value for money in investments. The standard is also a tool for enforcing accountability,” Campbell says.
Cesa is facilitating a countrywide training programme for built environment practitioners and public sector employees on the standard and is embarking on various initiatives that will drive transformation in the industry.
