Statement by Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Patricia De Lille

On Tuesday 10 August 2021, the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) gazetted the draft National Infrastructure Plan 2050 (NIP 2050) for public comment. The NIP 2050 was prepared by Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) over a period of six months working closely with sector specialists and other stakeholders.

Infrastructure development is critical to attaining South Africa’s long-term economic and social goals. The NIP 2050 will ensure that the foundations for achieving the National Development Plan (NDP) vision for inclusive growth are supported. The NIP 2050 offers a strategic vision and plan that links top NDP objectives to actionable steps and intermediate outcomes. The aim is to promote dynamism in infrastructure delivery and address institutional blockages and weaknesses that hinder success over the longer term. Additionally, the NIP 2050 will guide the way to building stronger institutions that can deliver on infrastructure-related aspirations of the NDP.

Recommendations are made to accelerate progress towards our development objectives, there is a focus on strengthening:

State-Owned Enterprises performance;

Sector-specific regulation;

State capacity; and

Private participation in public infrastructure delivery and management.

The NIP 2050 is not a database of all projects nor a consolidation of master plans nor a spatial mapping of projects or a mechanism for centralised decision-making.

The NIP 2050 seeks to identify the most critical actions needed for sustained improvement in public infrastructure delivery that will have an impact in the short term but with the longer-term outcomes in view.

In this first iteration, the NIP 2050 will focus on the critical network infrastructure sectors of: energy, freight transport, water, and digital communications. A second-round NIP 2050 will extend to distributed infrastructure and related municipal services.

Source: Government of South Africa