More than 50 major projects planned for SA – De Lille
Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure Patricia de Lille says 55 special infrastructure projects are in the pipeline as government looks to boost the economy and job creation.
De Lille presented the newly gazetted Infrastructure Investment Plan on Monday.
“The severe economic recession, together with the Covid-19 pandemic, has now placed an added urgency on us to navigate a new normal.
“In this new normal, there is an even greater need to partner in the investment and implementation of infrastructure that will facilitate social and economic growth in a workable and purposeful way.
“In South Africa, infrastructure investment, together with the use of public land and public buildings, is a critical lever to achieve spatial and economic justice by connecting our people, integrating our communities and bringing people closer to work opportunities.”
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De Lille added that many of the projects will be implemented over a period of more than one financial year.
"The comprehensive SIDS (strategically important development system) methodology has been applied to an initial list of 276 infrastructure projects, with 55 projects and 12 special projects being compliant with the methodology.
"All these sectors can respond to the social imperative to bring about significant job creation and transformation".
She said the department has also moved away from seeing infrastructure as just new construction.
"In addition, we have identified several labour-intensive public programmes that will see to the building of rural roads, building bridges and cleaning of our towns and cities.
"When we now speak about infrastructure it is across its entire lifecycle, we are no longer only talking about new construction but also about maintenance and upgrading of our existing infrastructure."