IMESA President’s comment|Municipal engineers are resilient and innovative

When I was elected as the first woman president of IMESA in October 2020 for the 2020-2022 period, the Covid-19 pandemic was raging at full force across South Africa and the world.

This created a whole new set of challenges for me as an incoming president. However, it also presented an opportunity to steer IMESA through the toughest storm in its history, ably supported by an exceptional Exco team.

One of the prime examples was the successful launch of our traditional annual conference as a virtual event in November 2021. Co-hosted with the International Association for Water, Environment, Energy and Society (IAWEES), we pulled out all the stops using the latest information and communications technology (ICT) to reach a local and global audience.

However, nothing replaces an in-person event, and we’re especially pleased that our 85th annual conference held in November 2022 has been so well supported once again as a physical event.

The impact of the pandemic has certainly been devastating and we’re now in recovery mode as an economy and a society. So many jobs have been lost, industries like construction, aviation and tourism severely constrained, and some businesses forced to close their doors permanently.

Covid-19 has also highlighted some key social ills that were exacerbated by the crisis. Examples include the lack of adequate access to potable water, dignified sanitation and housing within the growing number of squatter camps surrounding our towns and cities. For these communities, the series of Covid-19 lockdowns and the need for strict hygiene measures were particularly trying. Plus, an already high incidence of unemployment was further exacerbated by the pandemicinduced economic meltdown.

To make matters even worse, the July 2021 civil unrest – predominantly in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng – added to these challenges with the widespread destruction of infrastructure. Then a series of large-scale floods occurred across South Africa during the first half of 2022, with regions like eThekwini among the worst affected. Damage to key infrastructure like bulk water and sewer mains left many residents without services for months.

At the other extreme, metros like Nelson Mandela Bay have had to endure some of the worst drought conditions in history as the city’s dams drop to critical levels.

Throughout all this turmoil, the municipal engineering sector has remained resilient, forging ahead with essential projects. We’ve leveraged the benefits of ICT to project-manage and execute crucial maintenance and repair interventions in conjunction with our field service teams.

From the start of the pandemic, the focus for engineering team leaders has been on maximising health and safety – especially the mental health aspects for frontline workers, some of whom subsequently succumbed to Covid-19 in service to their country and communities. Our thanks go to every municipal team member for making a positive difference.

Going forward, South Africa’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan hinges on priority areas like energy security, industrialisation, macroeconomic stimulus strategies, and infrastructure development. The latter is the key to unlocking all these possibilities, and that in turn places major emphasis on every local municipality to ensure the most effective enabling environment in their region.

Backed by efficient and effective procurement and policy frameworks, the next few years could well be among the most exciting and rewarding for the municipal engineering profession. It’s a great honour and responsibility, requiring the highest code of ethical conduct. For this reason, one of my key objectives as president has been to ensure that ethics becomes a compulsory component of the CPD cycle for registration with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA). The proposal has been presented to ECSA and my hope is that it gains real traction. The infrastructure priorities are too urgent and, with constrained financial resources for the foreseeable future, the right financial decisions must be made based on fitfor-purpose engineering solutions.

On that note, I’d like to thank my Exco team, our branches, members and the IMESA head office staff for making my presidency such a rewarding experience. My best wishes go to the new incoming IMESA president, Exco and Council for the 2022-2024 period in taking municipal engineering excellence to new heights.

Bhavna Soni, president, IMESA