DPWI minister reflects on 100 days in office

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson has reflected on the work done in his department since he came to power 100 days ago.

The minister’s focus was on building a strong foundation to turn the country into a construction site and use public resources for the public good.

Macpherson was appointed Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure on 3 July 2024.

Measures that the minister has implemented in the past three months include:

• Reform and strengthen the role of Infrastructure South Africa become a single point of access for all priority infrastructure projects to ensure they are completed on time and on budget.
• Meeting with a wide range of financial institutions, technical advice and construction specialists to stimulate new interest in the country’s construction book.
• Tackling mismanagement and corruption head-on by launching investigations into failed public sector construction projects, such as the nearly R1 billion spent on the Telkom building projects in Tshwane.
• Working with municipalities such as Tshwane, eThekwini and Cape Town to establish technical task teams between the cities and the department to address problem state buildings and work together to use state assets for the public good.
• Completion of two orders in Cape Town to remove people who have invaded state property Castle of Good Hope and the properties of Waterloo to ensure that the properties are used for the public good.
• Tackling the construction mafia by one urgent summit in KwaZulu-Natal to develop a comprehensive response to the construction mafia with ministers in the law enforcement cluster and members of Public Works Executive Council (MECs) across the country.
• Improving oversight of property management by moving the Prestige Unit, which was responsible for the Nkandla scandal, back to the director-general’s office, and removing the ability for civil servants to spend up to R20 million without the consent of the accounting officer.

The minister said that while much progress has been made to bring stability to the department, these efforts must be accelerated to turn the country into a construction site and use public resources for the public good to grow the economy and create jobs .

“South Africans urgently need to see the fruits of our interventions. I applaud the government officials and stakeholders in both the public and private sectors who have worked tirelessly with me over the past three months. There is a real new energy within the department to carry out our mandate.

“In the coming weeks and months, we must accelerate our efforts to ensure we get shovels in the ground so that communities across the country can see the fruits of our work on the ground.

“There will still be difficult decisions we have to make in the coming weeks and months, but the choices we make today will be to our advantage in the future,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za