A South African's worst nightmare these days might well be the thought of waking up in 2010 with the country unprepared to host the 2010 soccer World Cup.

Sure, all infrastructure and built-environment contracts the world over have deadlines that must be met, but the huge penalty of missing the 2010 deadline will be the damage it will do to South Africa's global reputation.

To add to the challenge, South Africa, unlike this year's host, Germany, is also tasked with keeping the developmental ball in the air at the same time as it goes about its 21st century pursuit of stadiums, a rapid rail-link system and modern power plants.

True to its ideals, it will also want to provide opportunities for emerging black contractors and take that many more steps along the road to transforming construction so that it reflects the country's demographics with ever-increasing accuracy.

Against that demanding background, South Africa can draw considerable comfort from the fact that it has had a public-private partnership in place for several years whose job it is to "reform the construction sector for effective delivery".

That partnership is enshrined within the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), a statutory body that was formed by an Act of Parliament at the start of the new millennium.

The words "reform the construction industry for effective delivery" are music to the ears as South Africa begins to confront the hard realities of 2010, a R372-billion expenditure on public energy and transport infrastructure, Gautrain and a level of collective construction that the country has not experienced since the 1980s. If that fails to provide sufficient succour to those living the nightmare, there's more from a person who has been closer to "construction and development" than any other South African.

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Posted by pichu at August 18, 2006 8:56 AM