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Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) on Tuesday released its Bi-Annual Economic and Capacity Survey (BECS) findings, revealing a stark 22% decline from July to December of 23, marking the lowest level since 2019, at 32.

The ongoing downturn persisted into early 2024, dropping further to 30 amid political uncertainty, corruption, and infrastructural constraints, according to Cesa.

The organisation's latest survey sheds light on significant trends and challenges within South Africa's engineering and construction sectors for the latter half of 2023.

CESA CEO Chris Campbell emphasised the critical role of business confidence in driving investment growth.

"Higher levels of business confidence are crucial for investment growth, regardless of interest rates or financing accessibility. A sustained recovery to a neutral level of 50 or higher is necessary to bolster investment levels," he stressed.

The survey underscored the troubling trend of project cancellations, with 41% of respondents reporting tender cancellations in the last six months of 2023, up from 31% in June 2023. Reasons cited ranged from economic uncertainties and budget constraints to community interference and skill shortages, Cesa pointed out.

Campbell warned of significant financial impacts from these cancellations, particularly affecting smaller firms that lacked resources to absorb such losses.

"Project cancellations have a detrimental impact on the sector, particularly on smaller firms that cannot easily absorb these losses. It is imperative to address these issues to stabilise the industry and maintain project momentum," Campbell averred.

Despite these challenges, the survey reported an average 7% year-on-year increase in consulting fees in 2023, with a notable 10% growth in the second half of the year, largely driven by private-sector demand.

However, earnings from national and local government saw a decline, highlighting a dependency on private-sector initiatives to sustain growth.

Looking ahead, the outlook remains mixed for the first half of the year. Larger firms expect earnings to stabilise, while medium-sized firms anticipate a modest increase of 5% to 7%.

The order book to income ratio indicated potential future demand softness, contrasting with reported improvements among medium-sized firms, Cesa noted.

The survey also highlighted a notable increase in private-sector investment, particularly in critical economic infrastructure such as electricity, water, rail and ports. Fixed investment grew by 4.2% year-on-year in 2023, with the private sector contributing an average 5% increase over the past two years.

In contrast, investment by State-owned enterprises declined by 1.8%, following an 8.2% drop in 2022.

Cesa emphasised that the findings of BECS underscored the need for sustained investment in South Africa's critical economic infrastructure. While acknowledging positive signs from increased private-sector involvement, Cesa stressed persisting challenges such as low business confidence, high project cancellation rates, and uneven earnings growth.

"The path forward requires a concerted effort from both the public and private sectors to ensure a steady pipeline of projects, fostering job creation and economic stability. Our improved outlook suggests increased activity in infrastructure design and planning, but the real challenge lies in executing these projects to drive sustained economic growth," Campbell explained.

South Africa's Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) has issued requests for proposal (RFPs) for the construction of two solar-powered seawater desalination plants and a hybrid renewables-battery facility to service its Nelson Mandela Bay ports, in the Eastern Cape.

TNPA is seeking bidders capable of designing, constructing and operating solar-powered seawater desalination plants with a capacity of 0.8 megalitres and 0.5 megalitres of potable water, respectively, for the ports of Port Elizabeth and Ngqura.

The desalination plants would improve the reliability of freshwater supply for port users and bolster their climate-resiliency, the TNPA said in a statement.

The electricity RFP, meanwhile, is for the design, construction and operation of a 7 MW hybrid renewable-energy plant that has a battery energy storage system of 6 MWh at the Port of Ngqura to support the decarbonisation of port operations and improve the reliability and availability of supply.

Earlier this year, TNPA awarded a R60-million contract for the construction of a water desalination plant at the Port of East London, and acting CEO Advocate Phyllis Difeto confirmed that the State-owned company was aiming to ensure security of utilities supply across all ports by 2029.

The newest World Bank Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) report, which places a number of South African ports at the bottom of the list, covers the crisis-ridden 2023 period, and does not take into account the corrective action taken since Transnet has been under new management as part of a recovery and transformation strategy, says Southern African Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF) CEO Dr Juanita Maree.

"To contextualise, this was a period at the height of the crisis.

"The timing of its release unjustifiably tarnishes today's developments, casting doubt on the efficacy of robust corrective action underway and the hard work of the recovery teams and the leadership of the National Logistics Crisis Committee - a strong strategic public-private consultative initiative by government that serves as the anchor," says Maree.

"At the same time, we must acknowledge that there are valid points in the report, and we must not simply dismiss it, but rather constructively use it as another building block and join hands to ensure that we improve our container port performance."

Maree says the CPPI is based on a ranking of container port performance - not a score - and, therefore, does not serve as a diagnostic tool to show where a port should improve.

"Moreover, the report uses rank aggregation, combining multiple rankings into a single ranking.

"This is a significant problem arising in many areas, and it is an overly simplified approach to providing a single ranking of a complex system that is a port call," she notes.

"Furthermore, as the World Bank concedes, values are imputed when combinations of port calls and vessel call sizes are missing.

"The authors caution that the inherent risk with this approach is that poor or good performance within just one group will cascade across all call-size groups.

"Therefore, the CPPI is undoubtedly a unidimensional view of port performance. It attempts to examine the system's performance and devise a single index to indicate whether it is good or bad."

Despite this methodology critique, SAAFF believes the report attempts to emphasise that South Africa loses time at outer anchorages, "which the association and Transnet accept".

"Nevertheless, using a vessel's stay duration as the sole measure of container port performance without considering other factors like throughput and handling rates, highlights key obstacles to using the findings to measure container port performance accurately on a comparative basis.

"Furthermore, the World Bank concedes that it is impossible to see from the data whether waiting time is voluntary or forced, and that it is difficult to find a suitable level at which to discount waiting time in this scenario," says Maree.

"We must, therefore, conclude that South African ports were excessively penalised for time lost at anchorage."

A Different Narrative

If port performance is isolated based on time and efficiency, gross crane moves an hour (GCH) at Durban Pier 1 was around 15.8 moves an hour.

At Durban Pier 2, GCH was around 16.4 moves an hour.

This is 33% and 30% below the global average, respectively, but by no means the worst in the world, says Maree.

"Some examples show that the terminals reached 32 GCH in isolated cases, nearing global best practices.

"So, one might argue that a container terminal capable of sometimes achieving global best practices can certainly not be considered the worst in the world.

"But, at the same time, South African port users come from a background where rates of around 25 were relatively common in the not-too-distant past, and this is what makes the current performance so worrying."

Furthermore, there is no mention in the report of the volume or frequency of schedules, adds Maree.

To look at some examples, regional ports included in the study, such as the Port of Maputo, only had 87 vessel calls and only serviced vessel sizes up to 5 000 TEUs.

Another example is the Port of Nacala or Port Sudan, which only had 27 and 26 vessel calls, ...

Transnet said it's in talks to run additional trains between a port in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape province and the country's commercial hub of Gauteng to better link the two automotive manufacturing hubs.

The state freight rail and ports company has faced withering criticism from carmakers to coal and iron ore miners as its deteriorating rail service has forced an increasing amount of commodities and cars to be transported by trucks. The head of Volkswagen's South African unit has said car companies are in talks with Transnet to improve the line and run privately-operated trains on it.

Transnet in response to queries said it's in talks with the government and funders "to expand the Southern Corridor rail network" to add three 50-wagon trains for use by automotive companies daily between Port Elizabeth in Gqeberha and Gauteng. Later, the state-owned company said, it would expect private companies to invest in rail infrastructure and trains to boost the service.

Companies such as VW and Isuzu Motors currently rely almost entirely on trucks to get their vehicles from their plants near Gqeberha to Gauteng, South Africa's biggest car market. Companies with plants in Gauteng, such as Ford Motor Co. and BMW AG, could use the line to move cars to the port in the coastal city as an alternative to the congested terminal in the city of Durban.

Transnet said it's also in talks with VW "to resurrect the existing rail haulage service" between the carmaker's plant in Kariega, near Gqeberha, and Gauteng. A test train run was delayed by floods in the Eastern Cape, it said.

The state company said it also wants private train operators and investors to help expand shipments of manganese to Port Elizabeth and the nearby port of Ngqura.

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Eskom CEO Dan Marokane has confirmed that the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) is on track to begin trading on July 1 and that the new entity is being set up to operate as a fully independent subsidiary even though it will continue to be owned by Eskom Holdings and be located on the Megawatt Park campus.

At a briefing hosted to enable Marokane to reflect on his first 100 days and to outline his strategic priorities, the CEO underlined that the NTCSA's independent board was determined to provide "equal access" to the network as envisaged when the unbundling was initiated.

He also reported that efforts were under way to reconfigure the office arrangements at Megawatt park so that NTCSA had a distinct identity, including its own entrance.

"Megawatt Park has got multiple wings, with separate entrance doors, and at some point . . . [the South African Revenue Service] was located here and SARS was independent from us, even when we stayed in the same building," he said.

"I think what becomes important is the drive that the independent NTCSA board will have, working with the management team, to ensure that it provides equal access to all participants in the sector."

Marokane also stressed the priority being given to investing in new grid capacity in line with a Transmission Development Plan that envisaged the addition of 14 000 km of new power lines by 2032, as well as the installation of 122 600 MVA of new transformation capacity.

He acknowledged the slow pace of deployment in 2023/24, but attributed this to bottlenecks in the supply chain, which had shrunk as a result of years of underinvestment and, thus, required time and effort to re-establish its delivery capacity.

A target had been set for Eskom to work with the domestic industry to scale up to deliver more than 800 km a year of new transmission and distribution lines in the coming 24 to 36 months, he revealed.

In addition, group executive for transmission Segomoco Scheepers confirmed a report was being finalised regarding the NTCSA's approach to independent transmission projects, which would be built, operated and owned by the private sector for a determined period before being transferred to the ownership of the NTCSA.

Scheepers said that work on the potential for independent transmission projects was well advanced.

"This report will then be shared, once that work is adequately advanced, with Eskom as the shareholder of NTCSA and then also with the Minister of Electricity, and then we'll be in a position to discuss the details in public."

Marokane also reported that additional advisory capacity was being sought to support the unbundling of the National Distribution Company South Africa in the coming 12 to 24 months, which would be followed by the establishment of a separate generation entity.

Describing these transactions as "complex", he said it had become necessary to bolster both internal capacity and to recruit external advisers to give itself the best chance of meeting the timelines that had been set.

A new executive structure would also be implemented to consolidate Eskom's operational recovery, while leveraging synergies across the unbundled entities, including consolidating corporate services, as well as pursuing future prospects, including in renewable energy.

Amid all the political upheaval, work is continuing with plans to pilot a model for introducing independent transmission projects. Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses the prospects.

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The National Treasury has confirmed that South Africa is moving to pilot a model that will enable the private sector to participate directly in the development and operation of transmission grid infrastructure, drawing lessons from the country's experience in procuring generation capacity from independent power producers (IPPs).

Deputy director-general Mmakgoshi Lekhethe reports that the model, which has been mooted by Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa for some time, is receiving priority attention in light of the scale of the investment required to unlock grid capacity for new renewables investment.

Speaking at the launch of a new report on mobilising clean energy, Lekhethe said that Eskom had been given permission to raise funding for grid investment despite still being bound by the terms of a debt-relief package that constrains its ability to raise new debt more generally.

However, government had also concluded that private finance and capacity would be required if South Africa was to add the grid infrastructure needed to unlock more renewables, including 1 400 km a year of new power lines by 2032.

"Given this, we are working very hard across the government to pilot a model that can bring in the private sector to help us scale up that much needed investment.

"This means that we may have to use the same model that we use for generation for transmission, while obviously making sure that it speaks to the unique set of circumstances faced by transmission," she said.

Speaking on the same platform ahead of the new governance arrangements that would follow South Africa's 2024 elections, during which no party emerged with an outright majority, special adviser to the Electricity Minister, Silas Zimu, expressed confidence that the Energy Action Plan (EAP) would continue, including reforms to enable private participation in the grid.

"We're not going to change it [the EAP]," Zimu insisted.

NOT A 'CUT & PASTE' EXERCISE

Meanwhile, IPP Office head Bernard Magoro argued that the IPP programme had proved it was possible to procure electricity infrastructure from the private sector. However, he said it would not be possible to simply "cut and paste" the model for the deployment of independent transmission projects (ITPs).

Magoro stressed that servitude acquisitions posed a distinct challenge to ITPs and South Africa would have to clarify upfront whether or not the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA), which is in the process of being vertically separated from within Eskom, would be expected to lead land acquisitions and/or expropriations for such projects.

In addition, the fact that the ITPs would be transferred back to the NTCSA after a period of private operation would add another layer of complexity and risk that would have to be addressed.

Magoro argued, though, that some of the generic lessons from the IPP experience relating to risk allocation and the need for ongoing stakeholder buy-in and convergence, including with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, could be transferred to ITP programme.

That said, he also cautioned that it could take some time to establish a procurement rhythm, noting that an entirely new "ecosystem" of participants would have to be created, as very few IPPs saw themselves as grid operators.

Meanwhile, Lekhethe reported that the National Treasury was also prioritising other initiatives to improve the environment for higher levels of clean-energy investment and to ensure that limited government resources were used to stimulate such investments.

While describing the R300-billion in contingent liabilities arising from government guarantees extended to support IPP procurement as "unsustainable", she revealed that work was under way with the African Development Bank and the World Bank to assess prospects for a "credit guarante...

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A new benchmarking assessment of South Africa's electricity grid access queueing mechanisms indicates that Eskom's systems are slower and less transparent than those being implemented in developed and developing countries analysed as part of the study.

Published by the RES4Africa Foundation, the report includes case studies of the grid management frameworks being implemented in Brazil, Chile, Italy and by PJM Interconnection in the US.

These systems have been assessed against five key performance indicators, namely: grid connection timeframes, the cost of connection, regulatory requirements, queue management, and transparency.

South Africa's framework is in flux and is being governed currently by Interim Grid Capacity Allocation Rules (IGCAR).

These were introduced following the failure of the sixth public renewables round when none of the wind projects vying for a 3 200 MW allocation were selected because the capacity on which the projects were based had been absorbed by independent power producers being pursued on the back of private power purchase agreements.

Eskom argued that the new rules would prevent so-called grid hogging as they were based on prioritising shovel-ready projects rather than processing applications on a 'first come, first served' basis.

Separately, Eskom has also applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for permission to preserve/reserve grid capacity for the public Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) rounds so as to prevent any repeat of the failure of bid window six (BW6).

As a consequence, the bid submission deadline for BW7 was recently postponed to August 15 from May 30, a deadline that had itself been extended from the initial submission date of April 30.

RES4Africa Foundation Southern Africa project officer Mohau Nei reports that the IGCAR and Eskom's proposed Gated Generator Connection Process, which still requires Nersa approval, were also tested against the five performance indicators.

When benchmarked, the selected countries and South Africa all had strengths and weaknesses, but South Africa lagged on grid connection time, regulatory requirements, queue management, as well as communication and transparency.

The study recommends that South Africa ratifies its rules as soon as possible to provide investors with predictability.

It also recommends that best practices be integrated, including through creating online systems for grid applications and to provide real-time visibility of queuing progress.

Nei adds that the study's outcomes also point to the desirability of migrating to a clustered assessment methodology rather than case-by-case approvals so as to enable an analysis of the whole cluster's impact on the grid.

This, she says, will facilitate equal access between REIPPPP projects and private projects as well as enable Eskom to revoke capacity allocated to projects that are failing to advance to construction.

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The World Bank expects the global economy to stabilise for the first time in three years, but at a level that is still weak by historical standards.

In its latest 'Global Economic Prospects' report, the World Bank says global growth will reach 2.6% this year and 2.7% in 2025 and 2026, compared with the 3.1% average in the decade before Covid-19.

The forecast implies countries that collectively account for more than 80% of the world's population and global GDP will be growing slower than it did in the ten years before 2020.

Developing economies are expected to grow by 4% over 2024 and 2025, which is slightly lower than in 2023.

The World Bank says growth in low-income economies is expected to accelerate to 5% this year, compared with 3.8% in 2023.

However, the forecasts for this year's growth reflect downgrades in three out of every four low-income economies since January.

In advanced economies, growth is set to remain steady at 1.5% this year before. rising to 1.7% in 2025.

"Four years after the upheavals caused by the pandemic, conflicts, inflation and monetary tightening, it appears that global economic growth is steadying," says World Bank chief economist and senior VP Indermit Gill.

"However, growth is at lower levels than before 2020. Prospects for the world's poorest economies are even more worrisome. They face punishing levels of debt service, constricting trade possibilities, and costly climate events.

"Developing economies will have to find ways to encourage private investment, reduce public debt and improve education, health and basic infrastructure," Gill explains.

The poorest among them - especially the 75 countries eligible for concessional assistance from the International Development Association - will not be able to do this without international support.

This year, one in four developing economies is expected to remain poorer than it was on the eve of the pandemic in 2019.

This proportion is twice as high for countries in fragile- and conflict-affected situations.

Moreover, the income gap between developing economies and advanced economies is set to widen in nearly half of developing economies over 2020 to 2024 - the highest share since the 1990s.

World Bank reports that per capita income in these economies, which is an important indicator of living standards, is expected to grow by 3% on average through to 2026 - well below the average of 3.8% in the decade before Covid-19.

Global inflation is expected to moderate to 3.5% this year and 2.9% in 2025, but the pace of decline is slower than was projected just six months ago.

Many central banks, as a result, are expected to remain cautious in lowering interest rates.

The World Bank further reports that global interest rates are likely to remain high by the standards of recent decades, averaging about 4% over 2025 and 2026, which is nearly double the 2000 to 2019 average.

"Although food and energy prices have moderated across the world, core inflation remains relatively high, and could stay that way; that could prompt central banks in advanced economies to delay interest rate cuts," says World Bank deputy chief economist and prospects director Ayhan Kose.

Kose adds that an environment of 'higher-for-longer' rates would mean tighter global financial conditions and much weaker growth in developing economies.

PUBLIC INVESTMENT

The 'Global Economic Prospects' report also features two analytical chapters of topical importance. The first outlines how public investment can be used to accelerate private investment and promote economic growth.

It finds that public investment growth in developing economies has halved since the global financial crisis, dropping to a yearly average of 5% in the past decade.

Yet, public investment can be a powerful policy lever, World Bank states.

For developing economies with ample fis...

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Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), whose members are drawn from the largest domestic and multinational businesses operating in the country, has backed the African National Congress' (ANC's) proposal for the formation of a government of national unity (GNU) to end the electoral stalemate that has arisen after no single party secured an outright majority in the May 29 poll.

In a statement published following ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa's late night announcement that the party's national executive committee had agreed that a GNU was "the best option to move our country forward", BLSA urged parties to act with urgency to form a stable government.

"We need to quickly form a stable GNU that will assure all South Africans as well as businesses and investors, both locally and internationally, that government will be committed to our constitutional democracy and the institutions that it rests on, including a well-managed National Treasury and the rule of law," BLSA said.

While recognising that a coalition would require sacrifices, BLSA urged parties to put narrow interests aside and find a way to agree.

It made no comment regarding the form that the GNU should take nor on its composition, which Ramaphosa said should be underpinned by written agreements committing participants to pursue a "common minimum programme that focuses on measurable targets for economic growth and inclusion, service delivery and development".

BLSA did, however, emphasise the need for parties to commit themselves to respecting the Constitution and to prioritise the continuation of economic reforms being implemented to address loadshedding, the underperformance of the country's ports and railways, and to rebuild the criminal justice system.

"The structural reforms under way to address these and other challenges are critical to turn the tide on unemployment and restart economic growth."

It also called for the agreements reached to be capable of holding for the full five-year term of the administration.

The ANC said it would be pursuing talks across the political spectrum and confirmed that discussions had already been held with the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the National Freedom Party and the Patriotic Alliance.

The DA indicated its willingness to entertain a GNU, and has underlined that it, too, wanted the economic reforms initiated by government to continue. However, it had also indicated on several occasions that it was unwilling to enter into governance arrangements with the EFF and the uMkhonto WeSizwe Party (MKP).

The MKP, which continues to dispute the election results and has called for the scrapping of the Constitution, indicated that it would talk to the ANC but remained hostile to Ramaphosa as the party's leader.

The EFF, meanwhile, gave the GNU concept a cool reception, indicating its unwillingness to work with the DA, while the IFP indicated that, while it was not averse to the GNU, the "devil is in the details".