Constructing a vision, brick by brick

"Pray for miracles ..... but plant cabbages" - St Benedict

In his State of the Nation address, President Zuma laid down a government program that requires significant investment in the country's infrastructure. The DA enthusiastically supports that call as a key component in the building of a platform that supports economic growth, job creation and fighting poverty. Of course, more is required, but infrastructure provision is vital.

At a national level, the key elements of freight railways, harbours and national roads are critical, as is the provision of dams, electricity generation and transmission.

It is however crucial that the provision of infrastructure at the local level is significantly enhanced because this is where the majority of our people, rich and poor, experience the value of the infrastructure in their daily lives. It is only when people have reliable water, sanitation, electricity and transport that they are able to function adequately in a modern economy. If they have none or inadequate supply of these services, they have much less time available to study or work and economic production suffers.

We thus have to ensure that our local governments are empowered by the national and provincial governments to be able to deliver on the infrastructure needs of our people. Local government must either have adequate income sources of its own or an adequate share of the national tax-base to fund infrastructure provision.

South Africa has limited numbers of skilled project managers. This is a key area requiring a rapid up-skilling of many more people so that we are able to scale up the rate of infrastructure provision.

Unfortunately, the needs do not stop at funding and project management skills. There are a whole range of impediments within the delivery chain where government must review its systems and processes to enable faster delivery. In the planning and pre-construction phase, where the biggest delays are experienced, a range of issues have to be resolved, including land ownership, zoning, environmental approvals, community consultation, appropriate design, plans for operations, funding arrangements, tender specifications and tender processes.

All of these issues hold traps (and very lengthy delays) for an unwary government. It cannot assume that they will simply all fall into line, enabling infrastructure projects to proceed just because the government wants it to happen. South Africa has (for very good reasons) property rights that cannot be arbitrarily removed, land-use control systems and rights protecting the individual rights of communities and landowners, environmental laws that require proper consideration of environmental issues, financial control systems and fair tender systems with appeal mechanisms. These systems are all there to curb power abuse, to ensure that due process is followed, and that governments do not pursue their narrow interests or enrich themselves through the infrastructure delivery process.

Good project management, aligned with political will and intergovernmental co-operation can achieve wonders, as we discovered in the process of delivering the infrastructure required for the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup.

But even with that in place, many hurdles remain that undermine delivery.

One such area is the right of appeal against the awarding of tenders. This is an important right (if it is exercised with due consideration). But the consequence of unsuccessful tenderers using this right is that projects are stopped until the tender appeal is resolved. This can add at least 3 months, and sometimes much more, to the process before a contract even starts. A recent court decision now requires the municipality (or other organ of state) to accept an appeal as valid purely on the basis of plausibility.

Thus even if the appellant does not provide adequate evidence, simply on the fact that the basis of his appeal could potentially be plausible, the contract has to be stopped while the allegations are investigated. This means that without even a real case to make, disappointed tenderers can disrupt the delivery of services. And when the contracts are worth hundreds of millions of rands, the losing tenderers have nothing to lose and maybe the outside chance of gaining from submitting appeals.

Similarly, "professional" objectors can cause project delays in land-use zoning applications and environmental records of decision, even when their objections have very little merit. There is minimal impact on them for causing delays while the community suffers from the delay in the provision of services.

We must of course uphold the right of people to object to poor proposals and appeal against bad decisions. But it could never have been the intent of legislation to permit undue delays in the delivery of services. We need a thorough review of legislation to prevent abuses of these rights. Those who bring abusive appeals on tenders, environmental or land-use applications, without merit, need to suffer the consequences of their actions. We should no longer allow them to enter such abusive appeals with impunity.

Another area that needs urgent attention is the Municipal Asset Transfer Regulations which have been promulgated by the Minister of Finance in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act. The regulations were drafted to deal with corruption but are so stringent and bureaucratic that they prevent timeous release of land where opportunities arise. Even exchanges of land between organs of state are complicated by these regulations.

We need a simpler, less onerous set of regulations that allows municipalities that meet a set of governance tests, to buy and sell development land on a flexible, but open process that meets the needs of the market.

I have provided President Zuma with a detailed list of laws and regulations that are hampering economic growth. I am pleased to say that there has been active exchange over these issues at the Presidential Legotlas that I attend as Premier.

But now we need action. The President's drive for infrastructure-led economic growth will fail if the bureaucratic obstacles are not removed.

This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, the weekly online newsletter of the leader of the Democratic Alliance.

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