CESA Indaba resounding success
At the recent CESA Infrastructure Indaba held in Johannesburg on the 18, 19th August, a number of resolutions were tabled based on the packed programme of high-level speakers and panel discussions held during each session. As part of our ongoing advocacy initiatives, we will be following up on all of these resolutions and will provide regular feedback to members. There was a strong call from both government and clients for CESA to take on a more ‘political’ role with the aim of influencing policy decision-making. Interestingly this was also one of the recommendations that came through strongly at the recent FIDIC Africa Conference that I attended held during July this year. We, as engineers can no longer remain silent – we need to take up our rightful seat at the decision-making table on matters related to Infrastructure Development to ensure that we protect the lives and livelihoods of our people through value-for-money, infrastructure development.
The calibre of speakers at the conference ensured that CESA’s voice is definitely being heard with presentations by Minister of Finance: Mr. Enoch Godongwana; Jan Oberholzer, ESKOM GCOO; Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Head of Infrastructure South Africa (ISA); Refilwe Buthelezi, President of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA); Chuene Ramphele, Group Executive: Infrastructure Delivery at Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA); Keith Katyora, Deputy Objective 3 Lead and Engineering Technical Lead under Deloitte’s Southern Africa Energy Program (SAEP); Mike Barker, Energy Engineer; and Des Muller, Director, NuEnergy Developments
Day 2 of the conference saw presentations by Julien Rumbelow, Co-Founder, Director at GIACC-SA; Ivor Chipkin, Government and Public Policy (GAPP); Bongani Dladla, CEO, CIDB; Malani Padayachee-Saman, MPAMOT; Brenda Lacey-Smith, Manager: Education and Training, CESA; Vuyani Gxagxama, IMESA; William Moraka, SALGA; Warren McLachlan, Professional Engineer, SMEC; Dr. Sean Phillips, Director-General, DWS; Prof. Mbangiseni Nepfumbada, Co-Director: Joint Research Centre – Water, Environmental Science & Technology (JRC-WEST); and Andi Rweqane, Royal HaskoningDHV.
Presentations from the Indaba have been uploaded to the CESA website and can be accessed for download at www.cesa.co.za/indaba