Electricity + Control February 2019

LIGHT + CURRENT

CESA focuses on ‘Reshaping our FutureTogether’ – Doing what is Right!

Civil Engineering), and BBCBE (Black Busi- ness Council in the Built Environment) – in a bid to promote broad industry collaboration. Value for money, resilience and sustain- ability These initiatives include working towards capacitating infrastructure teams appropri- ately, in all client organisations, ensuring that the relevant technical skills and com- petencies are used in decision making re- lated to infrastructure development. Pather said there needs to be a strong focus on providing ‘value for money’ infrastructure. More focus needs to be placed on cal- culating the best possible infrastructure solution based on total life cycle costing of the project and not on procuring the low- est cost design fees, which make up only about 3 % of the life cycle cost of a project. He added that, “Sound planning and good feasibility studies incorporating innovative technology for the development of infra- structure are needed to drive economic prosperity and growth”. In his address Pather said we need to be active citizens taking account of our own future without waiting for someone else to do this. Implementation is key and CESA will work with clients to focus on delivery and action as opposed to just talking about it. He believes that ‘working together’, in- dustry bodies can assist in driving specific mandates, clients can focus on driving pro- ject management and delivery teams need to focus on driving execution. Skills, capacity and competence Pather believes there is a strong need for collaboration among industry bodies and key stakeholders for collective benefit, as opposed to diluting effort: working with universities, learned institutions and re- search bodies to drive our education sys- tem, as well as training people sufficiently in both the private and public sectors to undertake the roles they are meant to play in delivering infrastructure. This can be un- dertaken through the CESA School of Con- sulting Engineering, the Thuthuka Bursary Programme, SAICE Road to Registration, and the CESA Business of Consulting En- Ownership and accountability – Activism, volunteerism and values

Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) President, Neresh Pather, presented his presidential message and theme for the year at a function held in Johannesburg, on January 31. Pather’s 2019 theme is ‘Re- shaping our Future Together’ focusing on changing social norms by ‘Doing what is Right!’ Pather began his presentation by stating, “All South Africans can be mobilised to par- ticipate and actively reshape our economy, our country, our projects, our government and ultimately our lives. It starts with us!” In his opening remarks he said, “Pres- ident Ramaphosa’s renewed focus on the basic education sector, specifically around maths and science and the development of skills, will ready us for the 4 th Industri- al Revolution ... Over and above this, the President’s call for further investment into Africa and the latest statistics showing increased interest in South Africa as an investment destination are all positive indi- cators for the start of 2019”. There is a strong focus within CESA on working with and supporting government, with increased collaboration with National Treasury on procurement, the Auditor Gen- eral’s office on compliance support, togeth- er with partnering agreements with client bodies like SANRAL, Transnet and COGTA. This approach enables CESA to contribute positively in terms of support that includes capacity building, skills development, com- pliance and good governance. Pather said that the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide us all with the perfect platform to deliver purpose and engagement and a way to build trust between the public and private sectors. He noted that, during 2018, CESA was in- volved in detailed engagements to address the current challenges and the way for- ward with all of the above organisations. It was also involved in dialogue with the Parliamentary Appropriations Committee and it met with the Minister of Education. CESA also met with a number of industry bodies – ECSA (Engineering Council of South Africa), SABTACO (South African Black Technical and Allied Careers Organi- sation), SAICE (South African Institution of Delivering purpose and engagement – Establishing trust

gineering (BCE) Development Programme, among other programmes. He also said that, collectively, the indus- try needs to address the issue of the impor- tance of engineers in a socio-economic con- text and create the right narrative to attract young engineers into the built environment and infrastructure space – with a view to long-term relevance and sustainability. Pather noted that the latest industry statistics relating to transformation show an alarming picture: notwithstanding all the efforts being made in promoting and encouraging greater numbers of black en- gineers to enter the industry, the numbers tell a different story. He further noted that these results are not going to change over- night, particularly due to the decreasing workload in engineering, driven directly through economic decline. On fast-changing technology, Pather said, “The use of technology to speed up delivery and to satisfy demand will soon be- come a reality for all of us. We need to start future-proofing our teams and reinventing our service offering to embed technology going forward. All of these advances will be targeting faster design, more cost-effec- tive solutions and more consistent delivery of infrastructure and construction projects from both a time and cost perspective.” CESA represents close to 560-mem- ber firms employing over 21 000 people. Through its focus on quality and the cred- ibility it has created with various client or- ganisations it represents the hallmark of competence, integrity, and quality in the consulting engineering industry. Enquiries: Bonolo Nkgodi,Tel. +27 (0) 11 463 2022 or email Bonolo@cesa.co.za

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FEBRUARY 2019