South Africa has signed an infrastructure delivery pact with the UK that aims to improve asset management and build capacity at local government level.
The partnership was signed by public works and infrastructure minister Dean Macpherson and UK chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves on the sidelines of the G20 Finance Ministerial meetings in Durban on Thursday.
Macpherson said the collaboration comes as a result of his November 2024 visit to the UK, alongside Deputy President Paul Mashatile and the subsequent UK/SA growth and investment partnership that was launched then.
He said the partnership is not premised on a fixed monetary amount but will, instead, see the UK government provide technical expertise and strategic support in three key areas:
• Project Capstone, which will support the effective operationalisation of the department of public works and infrastructure’s Special and Strategic Delivery Unit (SSDU). This unit will accelerate infrastructure delivery by focusing on high-impact, high-priority projects and addressing systemic process inefficiencies that hinder effective implementation.
* Project Speed, which will enhance the management of public assets through more effective and efficient public sector asset management, including improved resource efficiency.
* Infrastructure South Africa’s Adopt-a-Municipality Programme, which will strengthen infrastructure delivery at municipal level in selected focus municipalities.
Macpherson said this partnership will see British companies being able to provide technical assistance and expertise and being able to put these projects into an investment-ready portfolio.
“I think it is highly innovative and it answers a big issue which we understand in South Africa that it takes too long to get projects going and even when we do, they can stall or collapse because they were not planned or prepared correctly.”
He said the SSDU works across the full project cycle of infrastructure — from planning and procurement to implementation and oversight.
“The UK’s support here today will help us introduce better systems, better co-ordination and stronger accountability in project execution.”
The minister said project speed will help the department manage its public assets. He said most of its assets — more than 88,000 buildings and more than 5-million hectares of land — were either underutilised, poorly maintained or completely neglected.
“With this support we’re working to modernise our asset register, digitise property data and improve maintenance regimes. Beyond the technical work, the goal is to simply make public assets serve public good in a productive, safe and accessible environment.
“We must stop treating state property as an administrative burden but rather managing it as a strategic economic resource.
“Our goal is to restructure and reform the property management trading entity which has all of these buildings that don’t generate a single rand. We’re the only landlords in South Africa that don’t make money. We have become the charity for other government departments and that must change. These assets must make money for the state so we can reinvest in those assets and social infrastructure.”
He said the Adopt-a-Municipality programme was necessitated by the fact that many municipal projects were not working as they should.
“Through this initiative we have selected a number of municipalities where UK-funded technical assistance can support local officials to improve infrastructure planning, procurement and delivery.
“If we want to see tangible results in service delivery we need local government to succeed and that means investing in local skills, systems and processes.”
He said the partnership with the UK is in line with the department’s broader vision to turn the country into a construction site.
“Our department is refocusing itself as the economic delivery unit of the South African government, in partnership with the UK. That means fast-tracking infrastructure projects that unlocks job creating and investment, cutting wasteful leases by migrating departments back to state-owned buildings and ensuring that construction projects are not only planned but completed on time and within budget and we’re already making progress.”
He expressed appreciation to the UK government for collaborating with his department, through its foreign commonwealth partnership, in this endeavour.
“Your government is not only appreciated but it also makes a real difference in our beautiful country. The three areas of support being launched today reflect the precise challenges we’re tackling as the department: that being slow project delivery, underutilised public assets and weak local capacity in municipalities.”
Reeves said she was pleased to see the trade relationship of the two countries going from strength to strength and that she was optimistic that the partnership will bring mutual economic growth in both countries.
TimesLIVE
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