Public sector's outflow of engineers hinders development

The lack of technical management capacity, particularly in municipal and provincial government, was likely to be the single biggest stumbling block to sustainable development and growth in South Africa, Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) warned yesterday.

"Deteriorating delivery capacity at these levels of government is a burning bridge that requires a huge fire engine to prevent total collapse," Cesa president Zulch Lötter said.

He said the number of professionally registered engineers employed by all tiers of government had declined from 5 100 serving 14 million people outside the "homelands" in 2005 to an estimated 1 800 serving about 47 million people in the entire country this year.

The percentage of professional engineers working in the public sector had also dropped from 40 percent in 1980 to 15 percent in 2005 and had probably shrunk further to 10 percent today, he said.

Lötter said Cesa actively and strongly supported the debates and discussions that were starting to take place about the political deployment of senior staff and the creation of a depoliticised professional officialdom that served the government of the day with integrity.

"The single biggest task is to get experienced staff and some permanence into these senior positions. It seems to me that long service today is counted in months rather than years," Lötter said.

Naren Bhojaram, Cesa's deputy president, said historically the municipal engineer was a very highly regarded and respected member of the government who had a lifetime career and a 20 to 30 year outlook. However, most municipal engineers were now given only a five-year contract, he said.

Bhojaram said the way the government had structured senior positions in local government and the respect given to these positions meant "no matter how much you pay them, nobody wants to do the job".

Lötter said there was also a lot of frustration among professional engineers in the public sector because senior officials in the government were deployees without the necessary technical expertise.

Water and sanitation, transportation, energy and financial resources were among crucial items that could spell trouble for everyone in South Africa if they were not addressed without delay, he said.

According to Lötter, water demand was expected to exceed supply by 2025, but as soon as 2013 in metropolitan areas, and local authorities needed to reduce the level of "unaccounted water" caused by leaks and illegal connections from a national average of 30 percent to between 10 percent and 15 percent.

Water quality was also deteriorating and a comprehensive set of measures was needed to strengthen the management systems for water services in municipalities.

Lötter said South Africa was fortunate to have a well maintained national road network but provincial and municipal roads were "burning bridges" and a major asset could be lost if drastic action was not taken.

It cost R175 000 a kilometre to resurface a road after seven years but R3 million a kilometre to rebuild, he said.

According to Lötter, uncertainty existed over the financial resources of the government and its ability to maintain and achieve its R787 billion expenditure target for infrastructure development and maintenance because of the increasing budget deficit.

He said the six-month outlook of Cesa's member firms remained positive but their longer-term view was more uncertain and less positive than a year ago. This was because of uncertainty about the sustainability of the government's expenditure plans.

Business Report

Posted at 10:01AM Feb 05, 2010 by Editor in Industry  |  Comments[1]