According to Steve Bartels, partner and principal engineering technologist at SRK Consulting, hopes of a recovery in South Africa’s economic fortunes rely heavily on more infrastructure spending, but the COVID-19 pandemic is further complicating this difficult task; speed and ingenuity are now of the essence.
"Government’s establishment of Infrastructure South Africa to streamline project roll-out, and the recent prioritisation of strategic integrated projects, is a promising step," said Bartels. Bartels further contended that "but all this work needs a strong and capable construction sector – and years of decline are now being aggravated by the local impact of the pandemic."
He said the role of infrastructure investment in stimulating economic growth should not be underestimated, citing the creation of 8 million jobs by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration in the US after the Great Depression. He also pointed to the similar vision of another great US president, John F. Kennedy, who once said: "It is not wealth that built our roads, but roads that built our wealth."
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