By: Murendeni Liphadzi

South Africa needs a national Building Information Modelling (BIM) mandate. Not because BIM is fashionable, but because infrastructure at this scale requires better information management.

Government has committed more than R1 trillion to public infrastructure over the medium term, while the national pipeline includes 30 mega projects valued at more than R3 billion each. The question is not whether South Africa can build at this scale. The question is whether we can manage the information that makes building possible.

Infrastructure projects bring together architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, contractors, project managers, public-sector clients and asset managers. Yet the information they create and use is still too often fragmented across disciplines, organisations and project stages. When design, cost, construction and asset information exist in disconnected systems, decisions can be made using incomplete or outdated information. The result can be clashes, rework, delays, inaccurate quantities and poor handover information.

These are not simply technology problems. They are governance problems.

BIM provides a structured approach to creating, sharing and managing information across an asset’s lifecycle, from planning and design through construction, operation and maintenance. Its value therefore goes well beyond three-dimensional modelling. It is about creating a common information environment in which the people responsible for an asset can make better decisions.

The industry has understood this for some time. Engineering News identified South Africa’s digital construction challenge as far back as 2017. A survey reported by the publication found that 81% of respondents believed BIM required a mandate from the National Department of Public Works to succeed. The same report noted that organisations adopting BIM were often doing so in silos.

That is an important historical marker. The sector was already identifying the need for coordinated policy almost a decade ago. The issue today is not whether the case for BIM exists. It is why adoption remains largely voluntary when the infrastructure challenge demands a more systematic approach.

The Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has been an important part of that conversation. Its BIM work and its Building Information Modelling Perspectives research have identified barriers including the cost of hardware and software, education and training, resistance to change and the need for standards and guidelines.

The next step should be to use the institutional levers that already exist.

The CIDB is uniquely positioned to influence adoption because its grading system reaches contractors taking part in public infrastructure delivery. Rather than relying only on voluntary adoption, government could progressively introduce minimum BIM information requirements into public procurement and, where proper, align them with contractor capability and grading requirements. Even basic requirements for smaller contractors could begin creating market demand while more sophisticated requirements are applied to larger and higher-risk projects.

This would shift BIM from a recommendation to a market expectation.

There is already evidence that client requirements can change behaviour. The City of Cape Town has been developing digital asset management capabilities, including the use of BIM to support the digitalisation of stadium facilities and the development of a digital twin linked to asset management, maintenance and capital planning. Its experience illustrates an important principle: when the client is capable of defining the information it needs, the supply chain has a clearer reason to develop the capability to provide it.

The private sector provides another part of the picture. Large developers, engineering firms, and construction companies have adopted BIM and related digital practices where international clients, complex projects or internal standards create a commercial incentive.

The gap is therefore not necessarily at the top of the market. It is among the many smaller and mid-sized firms that deliver public infrastructure but may lack the resources, skills, or client pressure to make the transition independently.

A national mandate must address this middle of the market. Otherwise, South Africa risks formalising what the most digitally mature organisations already do while leaving a substantial part of the infrastructure delivery ecosystem behind.

This is also why the policy conversation should not be reduced to software.

South Africa needs people who understand how information should move between design, procurement, construction, and operations. Public-sector executives need to understand what BIM can deliver. Procurement officials need to know how to specify information requirements. Project managers need to manage digital information. Asset managers need to know how to use it after construction.

The demand for these capabilities is evident. BIMHarambee 2024, hosted at the University of Pretoria, attracted 740 attendees over two days, with the event focused on people, skills, organisational readiness and business requirements for BIM adoption.

There is also a growing policy movement within the industry itself. BIMcommUNITYAfrica’s CoDESA initiative has brought together practitioners, educators and other stakeholders around the development of a South African BIM policy and implementation roadmap. Its work identifies the absence of national policy as a recurring finding in research into low BIM adoption.

These developments matter because they show that the market is not waiting for technology to mature. The technology exists. The skills are developing. The professional community is engaged. Research is being produced. Public and private clients are experimenting with digital asset management.

What is missing is a coherent national mechanism that connects these efforts.

The 2025 National Construction Summit Declaration provided an important policy signal by identifying a National Building Information Modelling Framework as part of the measures needed to accelerate digitalisation and innovation in construction. The opportunity now is to turn that policy intent into implementation.

Government should establish a National BIM Framework that sets minimum information-management standards scaled to project risk, embeds digital requirements into public procurement from the outset, and builds a skills pathway that includes smaller firms and emerging contractors. Implementation milestones should be measurable and public.

The framework should also be designed to avoid becoming another compliance exercise. A small community facility should not carry the same information requirements as a major hospital, rail corridor, water scheme or energy project. Requirements should be proportionate to project value, complexity and risk, with progressively higher levels of BIM maturity expected as project complexity increases.

The ultimate objective should not be to produce impressive digital models. It should be to ensure that the information created during a project remains useful after construction.

A road, hospital, railway, water system or energy facility may operate for decades. Information captured during planning and construction can influence how effectively that asset is maintained, upgraded and managed throughout its life. BIM can also provide the foundation for digital twins, predictive maintenance, lifecycle costing and more advanced applications of artificial intelligence.

This makes BIM an infrastructure governance issue, not simply a construction technology issue.

South Africa is entering an infrastructure cycle in which the cost of poor information management will increase alongside the scale of investment. Every major project creates vast amounts of information. If that information remains fragmented, the country will continue to lose value between planning, procurement, construction and operation.

BIM will not solve South Africa’s infrastructure problems on its own. It will not eliminate procurement failures, poor project management or institutional weaknesses. But it can strengthen one of the foundations on which effective infrastructure delivery depends: the quality, continuity and accessibility of information.

The industry has done much of the groundwork. Research has identified the barriers. Practitioners are developing capability. The CIDB is advancing the policy conversation. Municipalities such as Cape Town are demonstrating what client-led digital asset management can look like. The professional community continues to build skills and momentum.

The missing ingredient is national coordination and the political decision to make adoption systematic.

South Africa should stop treating BIM as an optional technology adopted by the most digitally mature organisations. It should make BIM part of the rules of infrastructure delivery.

Dr Murendeni Liphadzi is Deputy Director of the Sustainable Human Settlement and Construction Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa’s CIDB lead expert on BIM and a BRICS BIM expert.