BROAD STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT NECESSARY TO EFFECT ‘NEW DAWN’ – CESA

In keeping with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for a
“new dawn” in South Africa’s
economy, ConsultingEngineers South Africa (Cesa)
says it would like to see the reinstatement of stakeholder engagement processes
particularly in the construction industry.

These processes are aimed at creating a transparent environment, setting the
stage for economic growth that is underpinned by investment in infrastructure development,
resulting in improved service delivery,
explains Cesa CEO Chris Campbell.

“It is imperative that we develop trust between the
public and private sectors for our country to be able to gear up for the
demands of future growth.

“To be prepared for this growth, professional service providers need
to be able to plan and ensure they can adequately respond to the needs for improved service delivery. This
will require government to provide sight of the country’s infrastructure development
pipeline through increased stakeholder engagement.”

Campbell adds that, if government’s infrastructure rollout
plans are shared early enough, it will allow professional service providers
to adequately prepare and ensure there is sufficient capacity to handle demand.

This will effectively mitigate the impact of
suddenly placing big demands on the industry.

Moreover, Campbell suggests that most
previous infrastructure plans
will need to be re-evaluated, based on the country not having reached predicted
economic growth targets, coupled with the negative impacts of a global economic
downturn and the US-China trade dispute.

Such revised planning requires a strong partnership
between government, investors and professional service providers.

“Consistent with the ‘new dawn’ approach, we need
to work on implementing healthy processes in building relationships
that make for good service delivery
of infrastructure projects.”

Campbell believes there needs to be broad
stakeholder engagement and not just engagement of a select few based on
personal relationships.

He conveyed Cesa’s eagerness to partner with others on capacity building in the public sector. https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/broad-stakeholder-engagement-necessary-to-effect-new-dawn-cesa-2019-05-29