Speaker, hon members, one of the areas in which we have not made much progress as a country has been in the integration and co- ordination of infrastructure projects. While good progress has been made in improving the management of infrastructure development at national and provincial levels, much remains to be done in this regard.
While we have examples of world-class infrastructure being delivered on time - such as with the 2010 Fifa World Cup - there have been many other smaller and less complex projects that have suffered long delays. These delays are often not caused by individual departments, but are usually a result of the complexities of co-ordination and compliance with relevant regulations.
To address these legal and regulatory hurdles and other important infrastructure issues, the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission, PICC, was established in September 2011. It is headed by the President, and brings key Ministers, premiers and mayors into a forum that focuses on infrastructure co-ordination, makes infrastructure decisions and scrutinises delivery progress.
Thus far, the work of the PICC has concentrated on plans for future projects and infrastructure initiatives from a large number of authorities such as state-owned enterprises, and national, provincial and local government departments. These have been clustered, sequenced and prioritised into strategic integrated projects that, together, unlock the economic development of South Africa and maximise the returns on our infrastructure investment. A number of these were announced by the President in the state of the nation address earlier this month.
The three spheres of government and public entities have different and, in many cases, independent responsibilities on infrastructure as well as different funding sources, ranging from government grants and allocations to user revenues, borrowings and private partnerships. Public sector infrastructure projects vary in size and duration and there are thousands of active projects at any given point in time, with older ones being completed and new ones starting all the time.
Each entity, municipality, provincial or national department entering into infrastructure contracts has its own systems to manage projects and there is no common or central information system or database that regularly and comprehensively captures the changing status and progress of each of the infrastructure projects across the country. The idea of such a central system has been mooted, and Cabinet took a decision to institute a comprehensive project register which will collect and update project information on a quarterly basis.
This new tool that is being developed will be able to tell us the status of each infrastructure project under construction. It is envisaged that this information will be available to Parliament and the public.
In his Budget Speech the Minister of Finance also announced steps in this regard; in particular, that special attention will be given to the procurement processes for infrastructure, technical assistance through the Infrastructure Delivery Improvement Programme, adherence to the Construction Industry Development Board standards on infrastructure delivery management, and the establishment of a municipal infrastructure agency.
Beyond the Construction Industry Development Board's project register and National Treasury's infrastructure expenditure monitoring, which will scrutinise projects, special focus will be placed on the progress of the strategic integrated projects by the PICC.
I thank you for your attention. [Applause.]