Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba has reiterated government’s intention to supplement the limited balance sheets of the country’s infrastructure-focused State-owned enterprises (SoEs) by partnering with large mining, industrial and financial services companies.

South Africa’s power utility Eskom has a R549-billion rolling investment programme under way to build new generation and transmission infrastructure.

However, this investment will be insufficient to meet South Africa’s growing demand for electricity, and government is pinning its hopes on independent power producers to help double the country’s generation capacity to around 80 000 MW by 2030.

Similarly, freight logistics group Transnet is also accelerating its recapitalisation of the country’s harbours, railways network and pipelines through a R110.6-billion five-year investment plan. But its investment programme falls well short of the growth aspirations of some key sectors, notably the country’s iron-ore, manganese and coal miners.

During the 2011/12 fiscal period, Eskom will be investing over R7-billion and Transnet R25.8-billion, R15.1-billion of which will be spent on rail. Together with the R500-million earmarked for investment by Broadband Infraco, a total of R105-billion will be spent by the infrastructure-facing SoEs during the current fiscal year.

With the expansion of operations associated with this investment, the SoEs will target growth in their direct operations of at least 13 000 new jobs; and expect to help the growth in their South African supplychains by a further 40 414 jobs.

Addressing lawmakers on Wednesday, Gigaba said that no single institution, nor the fiscus, could close the prevailing funding gap, which had arising as a result of a decline in infrastructure spending between 1976 and 2004. Had investments been sustained at 10% of gross domestic product between 1994 and 2009, a further R1,5-trillion would have been invested in 2011 currency terms.

“We need to start engaging creatively with key stakeholders in the private sector to see how we can qualitatively increase the rate of investment to fill this gap,” he said, indicating that companies with the most to gain from an accelerated infrastructure programme will be targeted.

Such “social compacts” would be used to fund partnerships that could speed up the rate of investment in infrastructure and to align the private sector with government’s national economic objectives.

Part of that alignment also relates to “leveraging” SoE capital and operational procurement to promote investment in industrial capabilities, which Gigaba says will require a shift from the current transactional relationship with suppliers to a longer-term partnership based on the continuous building of national industrial capabilities.

He highlighted progress being made on a fleet procurement programme for Transnet’s locomotives fleet. “Given the scale of our national demand over the next fifteen years, we will be a significant market globally for locomotives and we will use this as an opportunity to ensure that South Africa becomes a global manufacturing hub for electrical and diesel locomotives, in partnership with leading original-equipment manufacturers and their home countries.”

There would also be an effort to bolster direct job creation and further strengthen the skills-development platform that is being regenerated at the SoEs, after years of backsliding.

With the expansion of operations, the SoEs were expected to generate 13 000 new direct jobs and further 40 414 indirect jobs. There were also currently over 9 000 learners enrolled in training processes at the SoEs, including 2 242 engineers, 1 064 technicians and 4 273 artisan students.