South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his plan to improve the country’s economic performance has attracted a record of more than R238 billion of investment.
Pretoria: AfricUpdate – News Desk
The nation’s new construction book for the fiscal year that started April 1 lists around 250 projects across various sectors including energy, roads, and water, he told delegates at an infrastructure summit in Cape Town.
“Infrastructure is the flywheel that our economy needs to boost growth and to create jobs,” he said. “Infrastructure that is well constructed and maintained encourages investors to see our country as a great investment destination.”
Ramaphosa spoke on the eve of the first anniversary of the formation of a 10-party coalition government started by the African National Congress after it lost its parliamentary majority in elections held last May. The alliance has made infrastructure the cornerstone of its efforts to reignite growth that has averaged less than 1% a year for more than a decade.
“We will turn South Africa around and make it a true construction site, but a beautiful site for all to behold,” Ramaphosa said.
The National Treasury has allocated R1.03 trillion over the next three years for public infrastructure with the hope of drawing in the private sector.
Years of underinvestment and mismanagement have left Africa’s largest economy with a massive infrastructure backlog. Ramaphosa has previously estimated that the country will need as much as R1.6 trillion in public-sector infrastructure investment and a further R3.2 trillion from the private sector for it to achieve its infrastructure goals by 2030.
Still, Deputy Finance Minister Ashor Sarupen told Bloomberg on Monday that attracting private investment has proved challenging because the government’s public-private partnership program is too ‘”convoluted” and investors continued to be concerned about corruption and governance issues.
“We’re not getting investment in quickly enough,” he said. “The infrastructure gap is very big and growing. And if you look at investment to gross domestic product at 15%, it’s just far too low for us to get a sustainable growth rate.”
