Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) has rebranded its annual conference and exhibition to the CESA Infrastructure Indaba. CESA recognises that the conference is a tripartite alliance between the 3C’s (Consulting Engineers, Contractors and Clients), working together to improve the quality of life of South Africa.
The CESA Infrastructure Indaba will be held from 9-10 November 2015 at Emperors Palace, to stimulate debate on key issues. The Theme is “Working Towards Improved Delivery of Infrastructure & Engineering Services”. The Transport Minister Dipuo Peters, the Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi and the Executive Mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni, Councillor Mondli Gungubele will give keynote addresses at the Infrastructure Indaba.
Topics to be covered at the conference include: – Procurement or ‘misprocurement’; Service delivery through Engineering Infrastructure; Human Capital development (Recognition of the engineering profession and Succession Planning & leadership development); Infrastructure Funding – Collaborations and Corruption (values or ethics).
According to the National Development Plan South Africa will need to spend at least 30% of its GDP on infrastructure development for infrastructure to have a meaningful contribution in eradicating poverty, to halve the unemployment rate and for economic growth to achieve the desired level of between 5 and 7% per annum by 2030. Currently the country is only managing to spend 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 are 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. It is based a foundation of trust relationships, strong accountable leadership, clear responsibilities and accountabilities, good and transparent governance, common vision and goals, process that facilitate implementation, project evaluation and continuous improvement through innovation.
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. This is how America recovered from the Great Depression of the 1930’s and, the principle remains equallyvalid today, some eighty years later.
For more information regarding the Infrastructure Indaba, please click: http://www.cesa.co.za/node/553
Wally Mayne Dennis Ndaba
Acting CEO Strategic Communicator
Tel: 011 463 2022 011 463 2022 or 0739812066
Email: wally@cesa.co.za dennis@cesa.co.za
