South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for private-led investment in infrastructure development at the 2024 edition of the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium of South Africa (SIDSSA) on in Cape Town on Tuesday.
“It is estimated that to achieve our infrastructure goals, we need almost R4.8 trillion to address the challenges we face as a country. We need that from both the public sector and the private sector – from a much larger extent,” stated President Ramaphosa.
Taking place on March 17-19 at the Century City Conference Middle, SIDSSA brings together key stakeholders in South Africa and across the continent with the aim of driving infrastructure development. SIDSSA 2024 serves as a crucial platform for discussions and partnerships in the infrastructure investment landscape, with a focus on accelerating economic activity through strategic infrastructure plans. Energy Capital & Power – the leading investment platform for the African energy sector – is a media partner for this important platform. For more information, visit www.SIDSSA.org.za.
The South African government has been working to streamline its infrastructure sector and attract investment in strategic projects. Regulatory reforms, according to President Ramaphosa, include “the amendment within our own realm of the Division of Revenue Act, to enable provincial government to use their provincial grants to crowd in the private sector to finance large-scale infrastructure, and to open up opportunities for the private sector to work alongside government to create revenue generating projects.”
These reforms, as well as SIDSSA, “enables us to close the infrastructure investment gap in our country,” stated President Ramaphosa. “This is a valuable platform to enable us to have an introspective look at the opportunities that we have.”
SIDSSA 2024 is hosted by South Africa‘s Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Sihle Zikalala, who said, “We will use this platform to outline the progress of the country since the SIDSSA in 2020. As we convene, we must emerge with tangible actions to finance infrastructure as a critical corridor to Africa’s development. Infrastructure should be a flywheel of our country’s economic recovery.”
Platforms such as SIDSSA – in tandem with the establishment of Infrastructure South Africa in 2020 – have been pivotal for uniting the public and private sectors, driving investment in strategic projects. According to Zikalala, “we have been able to unlock more than 195 licenses, permits and approvals within 47 projects alone. South Africa established the Infrastructure Fund to unlock more private investment in the infrastructure pipeline using a variety of blended financing tools. So far, 13 mega blended finance projects or programs have been approved to date.”
This year’s SIDSSA draws insight into the progress made to transform the economy through infrastructure development. According to Tertuis Simmers, Provincial Minister of Infrastructure in the Western Cape, “The Western Cape stands as Africa’s premier digital hub, and Cape Town is swiftly solidifying its position as the cloud computing hub of South Africa. Our province has ambitious vision…Central to this strategy is our commitment to infrastructure development: the bedrock of our provinces’ economic advancement.”
SIDSSA 2024 is organized by the Investment and Infrastructure Office under the Presidency, in collaboration with the Association of African Exhibition Organizers. The National African Federation for the Building Industry joins as an association partner, while the Development Bank of Southern Africa is the official sponsor of the event.
Gothic Gucci
Kiff / Kief – cool [kif]/[k-eef] Derived from the Arabic kayf, meaning enjoyment or well-being, kiff or kief is most often used to convey similar feelings of nice, cool, great.Example: “This chow is kiff my bru!”
Hemlock
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”