Dames: Eskom spend needs foresight

Cape Town - South Africa has learned important lessons in infrastructure investment, said Eskom CEO Brian Dames.

Investing in new capacity was a large task, very long-term, and presented problems in funding and building, he told delegates at the African Utility Week conference in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Infrastructure projects had a long lead-time, making timeous and cost-effective decisions very important.

"If we want to have capacity, whether it's water, power or transport, we need to make sure that... we have clear plans in place, look far ahead and make the decisions in time," he said.

Eskom is in the process of constructing two large coal-fired power plants, Kusile and Medupi, which are set to be the third and fourth largest in the world.

Medupi's first unit is expected to deliver power to the national grid by the end of the year and the other five units will follow at six to eight month intervals.

Kusile, in Mpumalanga, is set for completion in 2017.

Dames said the country had already seen the benefits of these projects through job creation, building new skills and developing new supplier industries.

He warned that countries could not afford to have a "stop-start" approach with infrastructure development.

"Investment in infrastructure must be a continuous process that will enable us to ensure we retain skills, not only within our own companies but [also] that within the supplier-base," he said.

"Skills are a crucial element of infrastructure investment.

"It is all the way from good project managers to good welders; to the need for lawyers and the many procurement activities that you need to do."