Launch of new bid window aims to “turn South Africa into a construction site

A collaboration between the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure SA (ISA) sees the launch of a first-of-its-kind bid window to “turbo charge” investment into construction in South Africa.

This bid window invites submissions from national and provincial governmental departments, state-owned entities, public entities, municipalities and private sector projects to apply for ‘project preparation support’. “Only 10% of projects reach thier financial goals, we want to increase project preparation support to see the success of vital infrastructure in South Africa,” says Mameetse Masemola the acting head of Infrastructure SA. Project preparation is the process of ensuring a project is feasible, appropriate, and potentially successful before the project has begun. This is a timely endeavour that incurs cost that prohibits many projects from moving forward or being taken up. This bid window aims to rectify this by supporting projects early on, Dean Macpherson, minister of Public Works and Infrastructure says, “The launch of this project turbocharges infrastructure investment in South Africa, ensuring that more infrastructure projects are ‘shovel-ready’ while increasing private sector trust and investment into state infrastructure projects.” The Ministry sees this as a means to secure 1.5% economic growth, the minister adds, “The IMF says that South Africa could see a 1.8% growth, which is positive.” The gains of infrastructure investment are invaluable, a 1% increase in investment can contribute to economic growth of between 0.4 – 3%. This project aims to be part of the “economic delivery unit” first envisioned by Minister Macpherson when he was appointed.

The Department of Public Work and Infrastructure and Infrastructure South Africa launch new bid window

Who can apply and for what?

The ISA states that projects submitted must meet minimum requirements, the project’s capital value must be R1 billion or more and have the potential to crowdfunding from a variety of sources such as multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, and others. “blended finance models have seen a lot of success, and we hope to leverage its power for catalysing infrastructure projects” says Masemola. The priority sectors for this project are:

Energy
Water and sanitation
Transport (major roads, airports, ports, and freight)
Human settlements (excluding student accommodation)
Municipal Infrastructure (focusing on projects that can attract private sector funding)
Industrial Development Zones, and Special Economic Zones.

More in-depth guidelines can be found here. This new bid window follows the earlier project preparation support on 12 major infrastructure projects. These projects benefited from the initial R179 million set aside by the National Treasury.