South Africa will have an infrastructure investment gap of 4.8 trillion South African rands ($293 billion) by 2030 unless it increases investment in infrastructure to meet the targets set under National Development Plan, e-newspaper Moneyweb reported, citing Dr. Hurbert Joynt, programme manager for Infrastructure South Africa’s Centre for Excellence.

The investment gap forecast is based on existing investment patterns and the current target needs to meet the GDP gross fixed capital formation target of 30% by 2030.

In July 2021, the government gazetted 62 Strategic Integrated Projects valued at R340 billion to drive South Africa’s post-Covid-19 economic recovery.

Later in October 2021, the government unveiled a pipeline of 55 new catalytic infrastructure projects valued at about R595 billion.

“It is a massive target, but with all the infrastructure investments [planned] will definitely augment and assist the growth in gross fixed capital formation,” Joynt said.

National, provincial, local government, state-owned enterprises, and public-private partnerships (PPPs) will have to contribute about 600 billion South African rands in the existing spending but “will also have to increase that component to 1.6 trillion South African rands in the future, he stated.

(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaira@lseg.com )