A word from our Chairman
When questioned by a student as to why the economic
exam questions were the same as previous years, the
lecturer responded, “It’s quite simple – every year we
change the answers”. I believe this epitomises the current
economic climate, particularly in the construction industry,
which remains uncertain.
In buoyant times, markets attract a plethora of ‘wannabees’, who
believe price and connections are everything. Quality and delivery
are immaterial. Hence, the sorry state of many of South Africa’s
industries.
The current economic conditions, and fortunately an increasing
requirement for quality and value, tend to have changed the culture
of our market. There still, however, remains a concern over the
range of consultant tender prices that can only lead to one of two
conclusions.
Firstly, consultants are buying the contracts to secure work to
provide for their surplus resource capacity. This can lead to a
lowering of standards – you get what you pay for.
Secondly, the vagueness of many tender documents and increasing
risks being passed to consultants results in low tenders to secure
appointments, followed by a contractual claims approach to recover
what was left on the table.
Neither of these is sustainable and has long term negative impacts
on our profession, in addition to the challenges of funding the
attraction, retention and development of the next generation of
engineers.
Within the above we, however, remain expectant that the CIDB
proposals for legislation for the competitive selection of professional
service providers will move the industry to a selection process
based primarily on quality, capacity, preferencing and value, rather
than just price.
It has been reported elsewhere in this edition of Enginuity that
Bosch Projects, supported by Stemele Bosch Africa and Munitech,
has established a Skills Development Academy, which will provide
and oversee formal training programmes for EIT’s and candidate
engineers, to obtain professional registration. It is planned to expand
the Academy to incorporate personnel from our clients and other
business stakeholders.
I am also pleased to report that
both SBA and Bosch Projects have
been successful, following their
re-certification in 2008, in their first
surveillance in 2009 and will now
be recertified under the new ISO
9001 / 2008. This supersedes the
previous ISO certification.
In their own way, both these
initiatives remain key in our
commitment to quality and skills
development.
As a Group, we recently held a strategy workshop to review our
future direction and to set guidelines for Group companies, who
will be holding their strategy workshops shortly. We have had an
extremely successful few years (turnover has grown 400% in the
last four years) and we have learnt many lessons on how to manage
a growing and diversified Group.
The changing economy has caused us to reconsider our vision
and s