Projects are a mechanism by which the City of Cape Town and broader Western Cape Province seek to deliver on government objectives in line with electoral mandates of the Constitution. Often serving as the largest – or one of the largest single employers – governments undertake projects with added dimensions to deliver the bottom line in the private sector.

Notwithstanding added social responsibilities and notions of the triple bottom line that exist for businesses, the government remains tasked with specific normative objectives of which project managers are required to stand cognisant.

“We have budgeted for growth and jobs in a conscious effort to open opportunity to all the people of the Western Cape. For the entrepreneur, whose ideas and hard work will create the jobs we need, this budget funds efforts to make starting a business less difficult, and growing a business much easier,” says MEC for Economic Development and Tourism Alan Winde, who outlined the province’s vision during this year’s Budget Speech.

“For the foreign investor looking for a return on his capital, it funds efforts to make the Western Cape a more attractive destination. For those in poverty, it makes life a little easier by providing funds for food, shelter and relief from illness,” he explained.

At a provincial level, the Cape Catalyst project is one of the most notable aspects of a strategy using projects and project management to achieve specific targets. As part of the strategic objectives of the Provincial Government, infrastructure strategy and game-changing mega-projects have been identified as critical foci to change the trajectory of the provincial economy. To this end, the Cape Catalyst has been mentioned specifically as a leverage point to unlock large-scale economic infrastructure projects.

The objective of Cape Catalyst is to strengthen the strategic economic infrastructure of the province to realise the economic vision of the Western Cape as set out by its leadership.

The goals of the Cape Catalyst infrastructure projects are to leverage off government assets to “significantly stimulate economic growth within the economy and within lead sectors specifically”, while radically improving the competitiveness of the region to allow for increased exports.

The long-term measures of performance cover the composition of provincial gross geographic product (GGP) and that of exports. The focus on the former is to see the composition of the sectoral contribution toward the Western Cape GGP changed to reflect greater contributions by the oil and gas sector, business process outsourcing, information communication technology (ICT) and tourism.

With regard to provincial exports, the province believes that the “mix of the region’s export basket should reflect a greater contribution of the ‘targeted’ sectors within the export basket.”

On GGP growth, the Western Cape’s economy should be growing more sustainably and more robustly than the current projections – hence specific projects have been targeted to ensure a higher labour-absorbing capacity.

The acting head of the Department for Economic Development and Tourism in the Western Cape told The Project Manager that the government’s involvement within Cape Catalyst infrastructural projects arises from a set of economic challenges and opportunities.

She notes a lack of efficient regulatory processes, which impacts on the cost and speed of doing business. “For example, aquaculture growth is currently constrained by a complex and expensive compliance and regulatory regime. In order to overcome these red challenges, the Provincial Government is investigating the feasibility of setting up aquaculture zones that would have all the necessary regulatory pre-approvals to give investors and small players certainty and easiness of entry.”

The province has diagnosed that infrastructure is inadequate and/or inappropriate, resulting in constraints in growth of companies and the monopolisation of limited infrastructure by dominant companies, thereby inhibiting competition. The telecommunications infrastructure has been cited as a case in point.

On the opportunity front, one goal of the Cape Catalyst project is the geographic clustering of activities and companies to maximise synergies and reduce costs of business through the provision of common services.

Jo-Ann Johnston, acting chief director for the Western Cape Provincial Department of Economic Development and Tourism, says there is a need to maximise the economic potential of existing infrastructure and assets in spatial locations to readdress underinvestment and geographic racial imbalances in deprived areas of the region, citing the Saldanha Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) as a case in point.

“The required infrastructure is considered to be a public good or a loss leader – regarded to be necessary to improve competitiveness and growth, but not viable or profitable for private sector investment,” she explains.

“The Cape Town International Convention Centre would be an example of the principle that sits behind this intervention.

“Overall, the projects taken together are designed to crowd in private sector investment and provide a focal point for joint public sector investment which will be used as a platform for growth, development and transformation,”Johnston adds.

The Cape Catalyst initiative is currently driving a number of infrastructure projects, which are at different phases of the project preparation stage. These projects are the Telecommunications Infrastructure Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan; Cape Health Technology Park; The Fringe; Port of Cape Town Development Framework; and the Saldanha IDZ.

The Telecommunications Infrastructure Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan has been laid out with the aim of providing a “coherent provincial telecommunications infrastructure strategic framework and implementation plan to assist municipalities and provincial departments” to both “foster greater economic growth in the region” and “assist in achieving greater effectiveness and efficiencies in government service delivery in the province.”

The project objectives seek to connect all government offices and facilities. Phase 1 will provide a minimum network speed of 10 megabytes per second, while Phase 2 will see that increase to 100Mbps.

The project is undertaking government-led demand aggregation to boost innovation and develop applications, content and hardware services within the regional economy.

For citizens, existing public ICT and Internet facility infrastructure must be integrated and extended; while schools, community centres, clinics and the like should be used as hotspots for extending service provision to households.

The provision of low-cost computing devices and the development of relevant local content are two other stated objectives.

For the economy, developing open access network infrastructure and passive infrastructure (ducts, network towers, high sites) is undertaken to speed up and reduce the cost of broadband network deployment in the Western Cape, while connecting key economic nodes as part of the regional backbone infrastructure development.

The project further seeks to reduce “the cost of international connectivity to targeted industries in the Western Cape” and “boost innovation and capability within applications, content and hardware service providers within the regional economy.”

Says Johnston, “Grasping the opportunities afforded by the Information Age has to be at the heart of the province’s strategy.

“The readiness to adopt new technologies, an innovative capacity and first-class infrastructure and services are essential if the province is to attract and retain inward investment, stimulate job creation, and ensure a fully inclusive society.”

Two sets of objectives in healthcare revolve around the Cape Health Technology Project, seeking to “develop a world-class innovation facility that will culminate in the co-location of innovative firms, government and academia health innovation programmes, and business and innovation support organisations.”

According to the province, the aim of this kind of collaboration is to spawn health-related technological innovations that lead not only to new firms, intellectual property, products and services, but also to capacity, increased regional and country competitiveness, and economic growth – while bringing about improvement in the lives of South Africans.

The Western Cape has been identified by the National Government as one of the preferred locations for developing the pharmaceutical industry to realise the country’s vision of South Africa becoming one of the three emerging economies in the global pharmaceutical industry, according to Johnston.

The Health Technology Park is currently positioned as a partnership between various public players – both national and local – that have a common interest in “the growth in biotech and health innovation, across academia and private enterprise.”

It represents the infrastructure deemed necessary to stimulate heightened activity in biotech and health innovation.

Of late, arguably one of the most successful projects has been The Fringe, the East City Design Precinct with the stated purpose of developing the Eastern central business district of Cape Town into a design-focused precinct. Cape Town’s being named the World Design Capital for 2014 – for which Johnston was one of the pioneers – is one of the most notable accolades to have emerged recently.

As a joint initiative of the Department of Economic Development and Tourism and local stakeholder groups such as the Cape Town Partnership, the aim of the initiative is to create “a premier African environment for design innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship” – showcasing design excellence, incubating emerging talent and enabling new innovations to develop.

The aim is for an improvement in the quality of life, improved economic growth, sustainable solutions, and a more inclusive society, through the creation of “actual and virtual space that provides an environment for business, academia, the non-profit sector and government to interact in ways that develop design in the city, province, country and continent.”

Practical action steps to achieve the goals include incubators for small and emerging businesses to access spaces for work and other shared facilities, with entrepreneurial training and support.

Prototyping labs, where innovators can test ideas using shared equipment, are also on the cards.

A key opportunity identified is the proximity and connections to university research bodies and researchers so that “business working through the area can cut down and jointly share R&D [research and development] costs, and where researchers can be engaged in addressing real-life challenges.”

Informal spaces for networking and chance encounters between researchers and innovators are high on the agenda, alongside providing opportunities within the area for access to venture capital in order to fuel innovation.

In the city, special projects are supported through initiatives such as special purpose vehicles (SPVs), which provide grants to organisations that operate in partnership with the City and are accountable to its portfolios – depending on which area they falls under.

The Cape Town Partnership is a cross-sector partnership, involving the City of Cape Town, the Western Cape Provincial Government, as well as business, culture, heritage, education and other stakeholders.

The role of the Partnership, which was founded in 1999, is to “manage, promote and develop” the Cape Town Central City. It started the Creative Cape Town programme in 2006 which, among others, gave rise to The Fringe innovation district project.

More recently, the Partnership has been involved in co-ordinating Cape Town’s successful bid for World Design Capital 2014, as well as the establishment of the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership.

The Aquaculture Institute of South Africa, Cape Craft and Design Institute, Cape IT Initiative, and the Clothing and Textile Service Centre are among the partnerships the City has undertaken as SPVs, incorporating private sector skill with city government objectives.

The City of Cape Town’s budget has included a number of major projects for 2011/2012, divisible into water services; electricity; solid waste; a transport, roads and major projects directorate; as well as a housing directorate. Refer to Figure 1 for a more detailed breakdown ☑

By Garreth Bloor