President Cyril Ramaphosa says government is working on reforms to develop sustainable infrastructure, boost business confidence and encourage investment.
The President was addressing the National Assembly during an oral reply session on Tuesday.
“One of the most important pillars of government’s economic recovery plan is a significant increase in infrastructure investment. This has meant that we have had to give specific attention to effective project preparation and the mobilisation of funding on a far larger scale.
“We have amended the Division of Revenue Act to provide for the pledging of future infrastructure grants to crowd-in private sector finance and to leverage external technical capacity,” he said.
The President said this will facilitate integrated planning and implementation. It will also enable the development of a funded maintenance programme, a monitoring and evaluation framework, and a governance structure to manage the programme delivery.
He highlighted that he previously spoke about the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape as pilot provinces to address the social infrastructure backlog in schools as well as in housing.
He told the National Assembly that Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) is making use of its project preparation facility to support the two pilot provinces to develop quality business cases for submission to the Treasury Loans Coordinating Committee and the Budget Facility for Infrastructure.
“Through this mechanism we will ensure that social infrastructure, particularly health and education infrastructure, is delivered in a manner that is cost-effective and rapid.
“It will also help to increases the participation of the private sector, both in terms of financing this build programme and also drawing on its expertise and capabilities,” he said.
As part of capacity building, he said, the Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) is developing guidelines for municipalities to use for project scoping and packaging. Importantly, the Municipal Infrastructure Grant makes provision for a portion of the grant to be utilised for refurbishment.
The President said through these efforts, the infrastructure build programme is starting to gain momentum.
Infrastructure projects worth over R230 billion are currently in construction, including in energy, water, roads, rural bridges, human settlements and student accommodation.
“These projects are contributing to greater economic activity and creating employment while improving the lives of South Africans and expanding the capacity of our economy,” the President said. – SAnews.gov.za
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