

8
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
MARCH
2016
Perrie is one of South Africa's leading authorities on concrete
pavements and globally respected in this field, having delivered
papers on the subject at dozens of top-level conferences all over
the world. He was elected to the new ISCP post at a recent ISCP meeting
which coincided with the Transportation Research Board's 95
th
annual
meeting held in Washington, and
is the first South African to serve in
this capacity.
ISCP, of which Perrie has been
a board member for several years,
has since its establishment in 1997
aimed to "facilitate the advance-
ment of knowledge and technology
related to concrete pavements
through education, technology
transfer and research at an inter-
national level".
The ISCP's current Board of
Directors include concrete pave-
ment authorities frommany coun-
tries including Chile, Germany,
Australia, USA, Canada, and
Belgium.
Bryan Perrie has been elected
vice-president of the Inter-
national Society for Concrete
Pavements (ISCP).
In a new video, ‘Mega Trends in Africa’, Frost & Sullivan experts and
C-level executives note that Africa is the only continent that has the
potential to achieve double digit economic growth within the next
decade. It is expected that close to half of the continent’s population will
live in large cities and that 58% of its working age population (15–64) will
exist in 2025. If this trend continues for the next 20 years, Africa will have
the highest labour population surpassing both China and India.
“The growth rates promised by Africa are second to that of South East Asia
at the moment”, notes Hendrik Malan, operations director at Frost & Sullivan
Since its establishment in 2005, Ariya has delivered a number of South
Africa’s high-profiled and prestigious infrastructure projects and exemplifies
the ability of empowered companies to meet the rigorous challenges in the
local built environment.
The acquisition gears GladAfrica to be the largest 100% black-owned
consultancy group in Southern Africa. According to GladAfrica’s executive
chairman, Noel Mashaba, “We wanted to create a completely African-born
organisation within the built environment, while realising our vision of
creating life-changing built-environment solutions. The Group will now
operate and offer all full services from all nine provinces in South Africa
with a strengthened project management capacity and the ability to further
customise our comprehensive selection of project management services.”
Ariya is wholly black-owned with a 35% black women shareholding, as
well as a level 2 B-BBEE and an international ISO 9001: 2008 accreditation.
While GladAfrica will retain its engineering consulting arm, the group will
establish a new specialised company to focus primarily on project manage-
ment services, including development management, tenant co-ordination
and installation and procurement management. Ariya’s current managing
director, Sigi Naidoo, will continue as managing director of the new entity.
Given the solid track records of both companies in the industry and
their similar work ethic and cultural fit, the new team is set to offer the local
and regional markets exciting alternative,
value-added services. Ariya’s notable list of
recent projects include the MyCity BRT in
Cape Town, Green Point Stadium and the
University of Mpumalanga.
According to Naidoo, “We embraced
this opportunity to join the GladAfrica team
in a joint pursuance of delivering innovative
engineering and project management
solutions. I have no doubt that together
we will create a notable force in the built
environment consulting sector.”
STUDY REVEALS HUGE AFRICAN GROWTH
Urbanisation, mobility, infrastructure, natural
resources, telecommunications investments and
inter-regional trade are just a few of the untapped
opportunities making Africa the last growth frontier.
The continent is set to become the second fastest
growing region by 2025, with a gross domestic
product (GDP) of USD4,5-trillion.
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Africa. “The big advantage that Africa does have, believe it
or not, is the lack of infrastructure and the lack of legacy
systems because our ability to leapfrog technologies and
get access to that growth much sooner than, for instance,
South East Asia had the ability to do is significantly better”.
Some of the key trends revealed
in the ‘Mega Trends in Africa’ analysis
Africa will have tremendous market potential for firms operating in the
digital currency space. By the end of 2015, there will be 12 million Bitcoin
wallets in Africa. Nearly one-third of Kenyans will be using a Bitcoin wallet.
Online retail will grow significantly in the next five years and will account
for nearly 7% of total retail sales in Africa in 2025. Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt,
and Kenya are emerging as the top markets for online retailing in Africa.
Energy demand will grow to 930.4 MTOE in 2025, which is more than
double the current demand. The mining and minerals industry will be the
bulk consumers of energy by 2025. Africa will grow from its current nascent
stage to an emerging renewable energy hub with a substantial compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% by 2025
Africa’s trade volume is likely to grow threefold by 2030. East Africa is
projected to have the highest growth in trade volume, driven by improved
transportation infrastructure. The Proposed Free Trade Area (T-FTA) between
South African Development Community (SADC), Common Market for
Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and East African Community (EAC)
is expected to drive imports by an average of 60% by 2020.
UNIQUE AFRICAN-BORN
CONSULTANCY
Engineering consultancy, GladAfrica Group recently
announced the acquisition of Ariya Project Managers.
Noel Mashaba: executive chairman
(right), Kulani Curtis Lebese: group
CEO (middle) and Sigi Naidoo: Ariya
Project Managers (left).
INTERNATIONAL POST
FOR BRYAN PERRIE
Bryan Perrie, managing director of The Con-
crete Institute, has been elected vice-president
of the Interna
tional Society for Concrete Pave-
ments (ISCP).
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