Consulting engineers, as key experts, are best positioned to unlock faster, better-quality infrastructure in the water, energy and transport sectors. There is a need for deeper and longer partnerships that ensure consulting engineers are involved from the earliest stages of policy and planning, not just after project approval, asserts industry association Consulting Engineers South Africa CEO Chris Campbell.

He says a key strategy for harnessing such public–private partnerships (PPPs) is having integrated project teams, comprising municipal engineers, national agencies, consulting firms and private-sector operators, co-design and co-implement solutions, particularly rehabilitating and maintaining water and road networks.

Other strategies include performance-based contracts, where payments are linked to delivered outcomes, and shared data platforms and digital twins for major assets, thereby ensuring that government, engineers and operators can monitor performance, plan maintenance and take collective investment decisions.

“Such collaboration also helps to build skills and capacity within the public sector, which, in turn, improves the quality of project oversight and reduces the risk of project failure,” Campbell says.

Infrastructure Backlog 

Amid South Africa’s significant infrastructure backlog, the biggest challenges are not a lack of money or capacity, but broken and stalled decision-making and project authorisation systems, compounded by chronic underinvestment in maintenance and engineering skills.

Public-sector procurement and project approval processes are often slow, fragmented and risk-averse. Consequently, projects remain in the planning or design phase for years without being commissioned, after which it is difficult to ensure consistent funding or maintain the political will to drive execution, Campbell notes.

To fix this, he highlights that government must adopt simplified, faster and rules-based procurement and approval pathways while ringfencing maintenance budgets and strengthening engineering capacity inside municipalities and line departments so that they can manage projects effectively.

PPPs, blended finance models and project banking approaches can also unlock private capital without overburdening the fiscus.

Campbell also notes that the government procurement process is too often viewed as a “selection event” rather than a continuum of project readiness and relationship building, which is why it often feels slow and complicated for consulting engineers and contractors.

Lengthy bidding windows, overlapping evaluations, late-stage legal or political objections, and frequent re-tenders frustrate the sector and discourage firms from bidding on public work altogether.

He says concrete changes to accelerate the process should include shorter, standardised procurement cycles with clear milestones and consequences for missed deadlines; and pre-qualification and panel-based systems for recurring services, such as municipal technical advisory and minor upgrades, so that government can call on consulting engineering firms quickly without having to invite open tenders. It would be imperative, though, that there be transparency on appointments to these panels and the will to spread the project opportunities across as many companies as possible over the three-year period normally pursued. Most often, unfortunately, there is a lack of transparency and companies on these panels often complain about work being assigned repeatedly to a limited number of companies.

Other key changes include a ‘technical first, price second’ evaluation to stop the “race to the bottom” on fees and to reward quality, risk-aware design, life-cycle costing and mandatory project-readiness checks. These checks, which should be conducted by the client, include confirmation of project feasibility, environmental approvals, which can delay a project from between six and 18 months, and ensuring funding certainty before any tender is advertised, to ensure that projects do not stall after being awarded.

Critical Skills Gap

The sector faces a critical skills gap, with previous data showing about one engineer for every 3 000 South Africans, compared with higher ratios in developed economies.

Campbell adds that many young engineers are leaving the country, as opportunities are not matched by competitive remuneration, meaningful work and professional development, with this situation compounded by other quality-of-life considerations.

“To attract and retain the next generation of engineers, we need structured graduate development programmes inside consulting engineering firms and municipalities, with clear pathways to registration, leadership and innovation, and visible aspirational projects that young engineers can join and see as long-term careers, not short-term gigs.”

He adds that government, industry and professional bodies must also act tougher on corruption and inefficiency to ensure that young engineers see public infrastructure work as a viable, respected career choice.

Further, the biggest opportunity for the consulting engineering sector is to become the core technical backbone of infrastructure-led economic growth in South Africa, Campbell says.



“If government commits to stable policy, faster procurement and stronger partnerships with the local private sector[ . . . ] then local consulting engineering and construction companies can take on larger, more complex projects, and play a central role in turning South Africa into the ‘one big construction site’ we have long talked about,” Campbell concludes.