OPINION: The Conundrum of Cuban Engineers deployed in South Africa

Gundo Maswime a Civil Engineering Professional currently in Academia says his hardhatOPINION is that the deployment of Cuban Engineers calls for the built environment to introspect on its responsibility between policy adoption and service delivery

Just this past weekend, a particularly close friend and seasoned public sector engineer recounted a very amusing and yet compelling account of a brief informal discussion he had with a 60 years, or so, old nurse in a Urology clinic. He had just come out of the operating theatre last Friday after a vasectomy was performed on him when the nurse asked what he does for a living. On finding out he was a Civil Engineer, the nurse told him that her late husband was an engineer too and that he must be turning in his grave to hear that Cuban engineers are being brought into South Africa to solve our problems. 

As the conversation was happening, the nurse was attending to his perioperative wound. My good friend told me that though he holds a diametrically opposed view to the nurse on the Cuban deployment matter, he was in a very vulnerable position with the nurse literally holding his “surname” with her nimble hands while stating her strong opinion on the matter.  This is an illustration of how our opinions, as expressed, are not always the opinions we hold. The views we express are weighed against our vulnerabilities and the authority those who are listening hold in our lives at the time of expression.

Many built-environment professional bodies expressed their disapproval of the decision by the minister of water and sanitation to employ the services of 24 Cuban engineers to assist with the water and sanitation infrastructure challenges in the Vaal area. There could be at least 8 municipalities across 3 provinces that contribute to the pollution of the Vaal River system and thus the decision by the human rights commission to place the responsibility on the National Department of Water and Sanitation is sensible.

Some professional bodies used the apparent fallout to subliminally place many other issues on the agenda as they berated the government by buttressing what has become the media’s mantra on the challenges of the state on matters of public infrastructure delivery. According to our media, public infrastructure delivery challenges are simply caused by corruption, incompetence and cadre deployment. 

This narrative has become so embedded that engineers avoid the stigma of employment in public service. Even when there is an emergency, engineers are more likely to intervene only in as far as their actions may not be interpreted as corrupt and incompetent when media scrutiny descends on them. Any activity the government embarks on is scrutinized through a lens of corruption, incompetence and cadre deployment. We have become a nation that can look for corruption, incompetence and cadre deployment where they are absent and find them. Hence the overtones of corruption in some of the formal letters to Minister Sisulu insinuated corruption and some commentators claim the Minister already has a plan on how she will follow the money in Cuba.

While working as a consulting engineer in the private sector, I noticed a pervasive mindset on the design floor that permeated daily conversations amongst the “older engineers”. There was a constant reference to how inept and unethical the government is. Conversations about the public sector were constantly about corruption, incompetence and cadre deployment. As consulting engineers navigating Microstation V8, Prokon, WaterMate, AutoCadd and other ornate design software packages daily, we felt very intelligent.

After all, the word engineer is derived from the Latin word ingenium which means cleverness.  I joined the public sector feeling clever and suddenly realised that I have become part of the “corrupt, incompetent and deployed” in the eyes of those to whom I have become “the client”. I was greatly surprised to be appointed as an executive without any membership or association with those that deploy cadres. I felt I had come in through the backdoor and still belonged to the clever club that is circumscribed in the private sector. In my interactions with the private sector engineers, I quickly realised that they are convinced that I was corrupt, incompetent and deployed by virtue of being in the public sector. Of course, this was not overt because you don’t want to offend the client. 

But the subtle signs like over explaining basic engineering principles and constantly harping about ethics indirectly made one to soon realize that I have, by virtue of joining the public sector, become corrupt, incompetent and deployed. Imposter syndrome kicked in when I needed to communicate a decision that was eccentric to rescue construction projects from scenarios that were not anticipated by legislation for which I had to think laterally. I could literally see them searching for corruption, incompetence and acting as a deployee in the decisions I make. In many instances, they would find the corruption, the incompetence and the deployment basis of my decision even when these were not there. 

ALSO READ OPINION: South Africa brings in Cuban Engineers to help with infrastructure (5)

This dynamic is at the core of the clash between the consulting engineering fraternity and the state in South Africa. It is a case of lack of mutual trust and respect. Government wants the services but deeply resent the attitude. But the attitude comes from a deep conviction and a well embedded worldview and has thus rubbed off to the younger engineers who are beholden to these older mentors like my friend is beholden to the nurse in the urology clinic.

Even through the years of the sanctions, the engineering fraternity never protested the recruitment of 1000 French engineers to work in Koeberg or the 1000 British and Italian engineers and technicians employed to set up the Impala manufacture line in the 1960s. Neither the 500  engineers and technicians deployed from the  UK, Belgium and Denmark, by the South African Post office in 1982 nor the engineering surveyors from French and America that were brough to South Africa to change our coordinate system from  Haatebeeshook (HAT94) and redefine the epoch of  International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) in 2014 received any hostility. German Technical Engineers have been deployed a few times to help Eskom since 2000 and this happened very cordially. 

Deployments done between 1960 and 1994 were done at a particularly high cost and with the intention to avoid the option of training engineers of other races which Johan De Lange had warned would result in the country having the same number of black engineers as white engineers within 20 years of its approval.

What we should concern us with the Cuban deployment is the fact that it is administratively quicker to bring engineers from Cuba (a ministerial prerogative) than to engage the services of local private sector engineers (an administrative prerogative). We must identify the sources of delays and inefficiencies and be willing to confront them even if it means changing policies and standard operating procedures. 

Our legislative framework governing infrastructure delivery is so complex and laborious. The Human Rights Commission has given the department an ultimatum 6 months ago and officials are still ticking boxes for the auditor general. The minister is not allowed to influence the procurement process by law but must solve the issue expeditiously enough to satisfy a host of stakeholders affected by the pollution including the human rights commission. It has been more than 6 months since the department was given the responsibility and the procurement process is still underway. The last time the minister cracked the whip, she was in the news for interfering and was accused of being a corrupt and incompetent deployee. 

The solution is in paying attention to the science of implementation. This is the science that concerns itself with what happens between policy adoption and service delivery. We have great policies and brilliant engineers but we lack depth in the science of implementation. Yet we misconstrue our failures as corruption, incompetence and cadre deployment whilst we know very well that this is the first government to carry the responsibility of having to serve more than 10 million South Africans equitably.

To share your OPINION on this topic or any other Construction and/or Built Environment related topic send us the details here

If you would like to be notified via email when hardhatOPINIONS are published submit your details here