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‘State, firms needs to work together’

The fact that public private partnerships (PPP) in South Africa were not working was probably the reason construction companies cited a lack of leadership by government as a barrier to infrastructure investment and none believed there was a lack of private sector initiative. But Gavin Maile, the African Construction Leader at KPMG, said private sector companies and government had to find a way to start working together. Maile said one of the key findings globally of KPMG’s latest construction survey was that government was not able to do infrastructure investment on its own and working with the private sector was the only way forward.

He said 34 percent of construction companies globally believed PPPs had the biggest potential in the energy sector but this increased to 67 percent among South African companies. Maile believed this was related more to the government’s independent power projects (IPP) and renewable energy programme. He said water was another area in South Africa where PPPs could happen because they were small enough to be ring-fenced and “get the private sector to make the difference”. But Maile stressed government needed to create an environment that encouraged private sector investment so infrastructure PPPs could move ahead.

Maile said PPPs had not been successful in South Africa as seen by the cancellation after four years of the planned PPPs for the construction of four prisons. He attributed this failure to the available skills, foresight and the ability to execute them, which had resulted in a large amount of money being invested in PPPs in terms of proposals being wasted.

Source: iol.co.za

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‘State, firms needs to work together’

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