Strategic agenda for infrastructure development – a Gauteng perspective

• Aug 31, 2012
• new growth path, infrastructure development
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Gauteng is the engine of South Africa’s economic future. Thus with the New Growth Path placing great emphasis on infrastructure development, it is necessary to take a closer look at a Strategic Agenda for Infrastructure Development from the Gauteng perspective¹.

But before moving too fast, it is important to consider that in addition to racial divisions, the apartheid system left a deeply entrenched division of people along class lines – giving our country the distinct uniqueness of a substantial wealth characteristic of first-economy development on the one hand, and an extreme poverty characteristic of second-economy challenges on the other.

In the past 18 years of democracy, the government has made significant progress in meeting the socio-economic needs of our people, and in dealing with the legacies of apartheid. These achievements relate, among other things, to the provision of housing, education, water, sanitation, primary healthcare and increased social grants.

Infrastructure development holds enormous opportunities for job creation, increasing labour intensity and the participation of SMMEs, and increasing broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE). It is crucial for the government at all times to commit to ensuring that all infrastructure development is implemented within the context of its role as a developmental state, and of working in a People’s Contract for a Better Life For All.

Basic principles

• Government must focus its infrastructure investment in the province’s underdeveloped zones, which have all the characteristics of a second economy and which can serve as a catalyst for improving the economic potential of these areas.
• Government must continue to support infrastructure investment in areas of economic potential and opportunity aimed at sustaining and boosting the first economy.
• Providing and accelerating the delivery of socio-economic infrastructure is key to improving the quality of life of all Gauteng residents.
• The consolidation and concentration of resource allocations for intervention in poverty pockets is necessary to bridge the gap between the first and second economies.

The Infrastructure Development Agenda²

• To ensure that the spatial location of current and future infrastructure investments addresses the challenges of reducing poverty and unemployment; creating jobs; and providing all socio-economic and human rights contained in our Constitution to people trapped in the quagmire of the second economy.
• To enhance investments and increase partnerships in relation to the first economy.
• To develop the necessary modalities to ensure political and administrative integrated and coordinated infrastructure planning.
• To ensure that all socio-economic infrastructure development tangibly contributes to the economic growth, employment creation, skills development, and SMME and BBBEE targets contained in the Gauteng Development Strategy.
• To develop a Gauteng Infrastructure Investment Framework, and evolve and implement alternative infrastructure financing mechanisms and models.
• To mainstream EPWP (expanded public works programme) methodology in the provision of all government programmes and projects, in all spatial locations – thus ensuring that infrastructure provision contributes to short-term and longer-term sustainable job creation.
• To encourage the private sector to engage in partnerships that will promote local economic development in underdeveloped areas with second-economy characteristics.
• To support BBBEE and SMMEs, particularly the enterprises of women, youth and people with disabilities, to take up the opportunities provided by infrastructure development.

With respect to social infrastructure, the government must integrate the provision of socio-economic public amenities with the housing delivery programme; facilitate social infrastructure investments serving as a catalyst for local economic development; focus expenditure on provision of social infrastructure in underdeveloped zones with second-economy characteristics; and invest in provision of infrastructure that is accessible to the poor in zones of economic potential and in developed economic zones.

With respect to an enabling economic environment, the government must partner with the private sector in the provision and maintenance of economic infrastructure in zones of economic potential and in developed economic zones; leverage private-sector support for local economic development in underdeveloped zones with second-economy characteristics; provide resources for infrastructure to support agricultural development of emerging farmers in zones with agricultural potential; and target underdeveloped zones with second-economy characteristics for expansion and provision of ICT infrastructure.

With respect to transport infrastructure, the government must provide financial resources, and work with other spheres of government in the provision of transport infrastructure in underdeveloped zones with second-economy characteristics, and in zones with economic potential (including agricultural potential); and partner with the private sector to ensure the maintenance and increase of transport infrastructure in zones with economic potential and in developed economic zones.