Concerns pertaining to infrastructure bottlenecks or lack of infrastructure delivery in South Africa, including inadequacies in mechanisms to procure professional services, have been raised by representative body Consulting Engineers South Africa’s (Cesa’s) parent body, Built Environment Professions (BEP) grouping.

The BEP grouping consists of the following representative bodies: the Association of Construction Health and Safety Management, the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors, the Institute for Landscape Architecture in South Africa, the South African Black Technical & Allied Careers Organisation, the South African Institute of Architects and Cesa.

Cesa says that while the grouping welcomed government’s revised infrastructure budget in terms of the 18 Strategic Integrated Projects (Sips) being fast-tracked by the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission as positive, it argues that the barrier to infrastructure delivery lies in the lack of transparency related to the allocation of professional services and tenders during the procurement process.

Much of the infrastructure to be built during the roll-out of the Sips is an integral part of the mining industry, so these problems could impact the mining sector as well.

“This lack of transparency manifests itself in the form of obscure decision-making processes and unequal distribution of professional services bolstered by a high potential for corruption, coupled with weak accountability mechanisms and lack of scrutiny over allocation of public funds,” says Cesa CEO Graham Pirie.

He notes that the BEP grouping believes one of the mechanisms able to curb possible corruption is having greater transparency in the whole procurement cycle, and that construction contracts awarded should be openly published, which it believes will also increase the accountability of infrastructure stakeholders.

“The grouping further believes that government must include a compulsory evaluation and monitoring unit tasked to, among others, ensure that professionals and departments comply with legislation during the bid stage and that they fulfil offers made with respect to skills and skills transfer,” says Pirie.

The grouping also sees critical importance in matching price with quality and preference of work, saying that professional service providers must be appointed based on a best weighting for price, quality and preference.

“Best practice in the procurement of professional services is achieved using a mutually agreed selection methodology, within the legal procurement frameworks, that does not detract from the economic skills transformation aims of government,” states Pirie.

The grouping is calling for a review of the scoring system for procurement and is of the opinion that the rules that dic- tate the procurement of general goods and services should be amended to include a specific section that deals with the procurement of professional services.

“Therefore, a new set of procurement policy systems must be developed for the procurement of the BEP grouping’s and associated service providers’ services.

“It is vital that government and the BEP grouping work together to create a conducive, sustainable, nonexclusive procurement environment with definitive transformation objectives, to ensure efficient project service delivery as well as the sustainable development and growth of the built environment industry,” Pirie states.

Further, Pirie says the findings by the Auditor-General pertaining to the use of consultants by government are both a worry and a concern.

“It is a worry because the report does not differentiate the disciplines of the consultants and because there are no proper management controls in place in terms of payments.

“This is evident in the fact that the public sector entities, as reflected in the three spheres of government, still owe around R1-billlion in delayed payments to consulting engineering firms,” he says, referring to information from the Bi-Annual Economic and Capacity Survey, from January to June 2012.

Members of CESA represent over 480 firms employing just over 22 000 staff, earning a collective total fee income of almost R17-billion a year.

“CESA has been vocal, open and honest in our dealings with the state and we have proper controls that subject our members to perform their duties with integrity as we subscribe to the principle of ethical balance.

“We believe that government should be spending more on engineering consultants to unlock projects to improve infrastructure spend and delivery, which will alleviate inequality, poverty and unemployment,” says Pirie.
He says the lack of engineering skills within government means that consulting engineers play a vital role in partnering with government as a trusted adviser, to ensure sustainable solutions that provide both quality and value are procured by the various departments, and at the same time provide skills transfer to mentor and train government personnel to ensure continued service delivery.