Winds of Change as MEC Ravi Pillay addresses the Provincial Legislature of his first Vote 14 Budget Speech

It was Friday the 8th of June 2012 as MEC Ravi Pillay entered the KwaZulu Natal Provincial Legislature to present his first ever Vote 14 Budget Speech since being sworn in as MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works on XXXX. You could have seen with the number of guests who flogged their way into the gallery that Mr Pillay seem to be a centre figure amongst the politicians of the Province.

In his opening remarks, the first of its kind, MEC Pillay emphasised that “ One of the major thrusts of the present administration led by President Jacob Zuma is the pursuit of infrastructure development which in turn would be a catalyst for economic growth and job creation. It is a visionary programme inspired by leadership committed to genuine and sustainable solutions for the future of the country. The outcomes approach which characterises the present administration demands that we critically locate ourselves as Public Works within the new service delivery model.” This is a pathway to greater responsibilities for Mr Pillay and his Department. It is quite indicative that he has indeed a mammoth task ahead in achieving amongst other the following goal paths:

- Ensuring that Public Works take a lead in driving the economy of the Province in job creation and work opportunities;

- Continue on the wave and momentum of Public Works to roll back the frontiers of poverty through programmes such as Izandla Ziyagezana; The KZN Integrated Greening Programme; Property Incubator Programme; National Youth Service; The Extended Public Works Programme and the Internship Programme, that create sustainable jobs and work opportunities while simultaneously upskilling the beneficiaries, particularly young people;

Notwithstanding the fact that infrastructure remains the key challenge and inadequate to meet the social and economic needs of the people. Equally so, it has been noted that the Department of Public Works has made its mark when one zooms into the positive pocket of progress or achievement with the rate at which the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) reaches the skies with remarkable statistics achieved thus far. This is by far attested by MEC Pillay who confidently announced the figures with ease that “It is worth noting that a sizeable number of these jobs were created in KwaZulu-Natal. For the 2011-2012 financial year, the Department had an internal target of 28 000 work opportunities. Between April 2011 and March 2012 a total of 137 207 work opportunities were created. This was a remarkable achievement.” It should also be acknowledged that notwithstanding 2 such great strides, there is still room for doing more in setting interventions for challenges that keep on emerging. The reality which the MEC remarked boldly on was the steadily reduction percentage of the Provincial capital expenditure programme which showed a grey area for the past decade and reason being a trend in client Departments increasingly choosing implementing agents rather than Public Works. However, from Mr Pillay’s point of understanding, there is an imminent change which is to come. “We boldly say that we have accepted this challenge to reclaim our position as the implementing agent of choice for all sector Departments.” He emphasised with confidence. This statement is coupled with the call by Mr Pillay and his Department to reclaim Public Works’ position as “an implementing agent of choice for all sector Departments”. It was far-fetched for a layman to understand these remarks but an answer to this was the announcement of the “capacitation plan”. This plan is according Mr Pillay aimed at generating a capacitation framework that is aligned to the Infrastructure Delivery Management System (IDMS).The framework intends to establish sustainable institutional capacity within the Provincial Government to support effective and efficient infrastructure planning and delivery. It is quite interesting to note that given an increased capacitation budget for improving infrastructure support and the strategic focus of government to shift the composition of expenditure towards investment in infrastructure, the MEC and Public Works together with other partner Departments in the Province would seek or foster to prioritize establishing the organizational capacity required to support infrastructure delivery. One therefore see beyond the horizon where Public Works will work towards boosting its capacity by employing a full complement of engineers, quantity surveyors, architects and technicians as was alluded by the Premier in his State of the Province Address earlier this year.

Added to the pockets of excellence is the Public Works Internship Programme which has secured 27 newly-graduated engineers, architects, project managers and quantity surveyors thus far. Therefore the Capacitation Plan would made provisions of increasing capacity within the Department and the view is that some of the training and exposure required by interns could be provided within the Department by way of deployment to appropriate infrastructure programmes throughout the KwaZulu-Natal Province.