skip to main |
skip to sidebar
 |
| Eddie Cottle |
Over the past 20 years South Africa’s construction sector has undergone marked expansion. In the apartheid era it was constrained by sanctions and racial policies. However, the post-apartheid state actively encouraged a series of policy measures to foster the economic growth of South African construction firms. Key to the policy process was the establishment of a Construction Industry Development Board, a Register of Contractors, the scheduling of public sector spending through the Medium Term Expenditure Framework process, and support programmes to develop the emerging black contractors. The post-apartheid state also became the construction sector’s biggest single client in the delivery of social and economic infrastructure.
The almost immediate shift from the social democratic Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) in 1994 to a series of neo-liberal macro-economic policies, from 1996 onwards, ensured increasing levels of labour flexibility and improved productivity of the labour force. State intervention was therefore crucial in ensuring that the construction sector enjoyed 18 years of sustained economic growth with an average GDP contribution of 2.3 per cent over a 20 year period.
