The Civil Engineering Contractor April 2019 | Page 26

FEATURE: INFRASTRUCTURE
Port of Cape Town.
minimising delays and reducing the
cost of doing business.” Inland ports for
containers already exist at City Deep
and Kaserne in Johannesburg; Pretcon
and Rosslyn in Pretoria; Bellville;
Bloemfontein (small); and Centrarand
(only a marshalling yard at the
moment). “Future ones are planned at
Tambo Springs (between Johannesburg
and Heidelberg), Pyramid South, and
Cato Ridge,” says Marutla.
The biggest challenge to port
engineering, Hartwell says, is the
large-scale loss of engineering skills
the country has suffered over the
past 30 years. Although we still have
world-class skills, Hartwell believes
those skills are no longer in such
abundance for South Africa to embark
on large projects without outside
technical assistance. “The dearth of
local projects has compelled our
engineers to go where the work is.”
Marutla adds that South Africa
has experienced railway and port
engineers: “But we should allow
them to do their work without undue
political interference. The railways
and ports are engineering systems
— I believe they can best be run
ethically by qualified engineers in
24 | CEC April 2019
their respective fields and there are
plenty in this country.”
Airports good
The SAICE 2017 Infrastructure
Report Card credits South Africa’s
Acsa-owned airports (only) a
decent B+: “The three major
international airports (OR Tambo
in Johannesburg, Cape Town
International, and King Shaka in
Durban) account for nearly 90% of
the 39-million annual Acsa passenger
movements. Acsa has proven to be a
world-class aviation infrastructure
provider, strongly driven by the need
to meet international compliance
requirements and by its own high
internal standards. Relatively high
tariffs and possible capital over-
investment could pose a problem for
the sustainability of these standards.”
Speaking at the latest South
African Forum of Civil Engineering
Contractors (SAFCEC) annual
national conference, Acsa group
executive: technical services &
solutions, Girish Gopal, outlined
Acsa’s
capital
expenditure
programme over the next five years
in its international network, mostly in
South Africa. Acsa has forecast R20-
billion of capex on infrastructure
in the next five years, primarily at
three of its international airports. The
biggest projects have been funded and
are ready to go on tender in 2019.
“We categorise our projects in
terms of capacity; commercial
development; efficiency and
technology; replacement and
refurbishment; and compliance.
The bigger numbers are sitting in
the capacity projects: in 2019, just
over R1-billion, but it grows to
R4-billion (2020), over R5-billion
in 2021, and thereafter reduces
slightly. There was a delay of about
three years in terms of getting the
authorisation for these projects
from our regulator, so there’s a
bit of catch-up to do. Most of the
capacity projects are in Cape Town
and OR Tambo largely, with the rest
being at King Shaka and the smaller
airports,” says Gopal.
The construction programme for
Cape Town International Airport
(CTIA) includes a realigned runway
— moving it by about 200m to the
east and turning it by 11 degrees.
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