NCOP Provincial Week


The theme for Provincial Week is: “Advancing infrastructure investment and development for better services to communities”.

Focus of the Provincial Week of 14 to 18 September 2015

The Provincial Week of 14 to 18 September 2015 is intended focus on assessing progress on three categories of strategic infrastructure projects (SIPs) across all nine provinces:

  • Catalytic projects such as the Northern Mineral Belt, Durban-Free State-Gauteng Development Region, South-Eastern Node and Corridor and Saldanha-Northern Cape Corridor
  • Enabling socio-economic development projects such as the Greening the South African Economy, electricity Generation, transmission and distribution projects, bulk water and sanitation supply projects, Municipal development projects, agro-logistics and rural infrastructure development projects, urban spatial development and management projects, re-organisation and regional Integration
  • Cross-cutting projects such as information and communication technologies, national school build and higher education projects such as the new universities, and revitalisation of public hospitals.

The Provincial Week of 14 to 18 September 2015 is intended to enable Parliament, Provincial Legislatures and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) particularly the NCOP an opportunity to monitor the state of infrastructure in the nine provinces. It is intended to give credence to Parliament's new strategic vision, namely to build an effective people's Parliament "... that is driven by the ideal of realising a better quality of life for all the people of South Africa", by enabling the legislative sector in South Africa an opportunity to play a leading role in guiding mechanisms to address challenges facing infrastructure investment and development in the nine provinces.

Background

Infrastructure investment and development is a very strong indicator of socio-economic development in any country. In South Africa infrastructure investment and development lies at the heart of the stimulatory fiscal package of the South African government and is pivotal to the National Development Plan (NDP) and the New Growth Path.

Since the dawn of democracy in 1994, South Africa has started a multibillion-rand development drive to remedy the skewed implementation of infrastructure during the apartheid years, and to meet the demands of a growing economy and population. The country’s investment in infrastructure gained momentum after several concerns about the impact of poor infrastructure investment in the delivery of quality and reliable services to communities.

In 2006, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) produced “The State of Municipal Infrastructure In South Africa and its Operation and Maintenance” and a document titled “Towards a framework for the maintenance of municipal infrastructure: In support of government growth objectives”, which both highlight the enormous challenges and stress facing service delivery infrastructure in municipalities in the nine provinces. Both reports highlight that poor design and construction, together probably with inappropriate operation, has led to breakdown of infrastructure for water and sanitation, electricity and municipal roads and storm water drainage, libraries and clinics.

The government has also acknowledged that meeting the complex challenges of a diverse and geographically dispersed set of capital projects requires long-term investment, planning, detailed analysis, and continual learning and adaptation. For this reason, the government has committed itself to ensuring that all public-sector infrastructure projects are subjected to rigorous assessment to determine whether they are in line with government’s long term plan, prudent financial spending and meet all the long term feasibility criteria.

In recent years, government has sought to accelerate public infrastructure spending, while also encouraging greater private-sector investment. South Africa’s public sector capital investment stood at 7.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, while investment by private enterprises amounted to 12.2% of GDP.

Recently, the government has noted that South Africa needs is facing a major challenge of ageing and neglected infrastructure, which result in disruption of services to communities and disproportionately high maintenance cost. As a result, the government adopted the NDP to significantly reduce inequality in South Africa by 2030 "through uniting South Africans, unleashing the energies of its citizens, growing an inclusive economy, building capabilities and enhancing the capability of the state and leaders to work together to solve complex problems". Central to the NDP is the Infrastructure Plan, which is intended to transform the economic landscape of South Africa, create a significant numbers of new jobs, strengthen the delivery of basic services to the people of South Africa and support the integration of African economies. The Plan sets out the challenges and enablers which South Africa needs to respond to in the building and developing of infrastructure and the establishment of the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC), as a body to integrate and coordinate the long term infrastructure build.

The principal systemic issues underlying the problem of infrastructure in South Africa are:

  • Historical imbalances and long years skewed services delivery investment;
  • Lack of appropriate, credible and authoritative infrastructure planning and investment norms and standards and guidelines for new infrastructure;
  • Appointment of unqualified contractors;
  • Inadequate technical skills and experience to plan and implement appropriate maintenance plans for projects; and
  • Lack of sound infrastructure maintenance plans in provinces and municipalities