President Cyril Ramaphosa said recently the State would spend more than a trillion rand over the next three years on building and repairing infrastructure. It sounds like a lot but it’s slightly more than just R300bn a year. Is that it? Public Works Minister Dean MacPherson tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge the R1trn is just what the State has at the ready to spend with private sector partners. If the take-up is strong – across rail, ports, water, health, education -- it could double the State’s contribution and get the country to where we are investing the equivalent of more than 25% of our GDP – that finally breaks the growth barrier and gets people working. But government is slow and disjointed and MacPherson wants to see more spending coming through Infrastructure South Africa, which reports to him. Eskom’s transmission business, for instance, is buying land for the 14000km of new lines we need. Yet a lot of the land it needs to acquire already belongs to the government. So why pay for it? 

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