Advancing infrastructure investments in South Africa: The centrality of off-take negotiations

Expanding economic and social infrastructure in South Africa is at the heart of the National Infrastructure Plan 2050, or NIP-2050, designed in strategic pursuit of the national vision of inclusive growth, and aligning key development objectives with actionable investments and their outcomes.The urgency for the development of water infrastructure is underlined in NIP-2050, requiring investments of about ZAR 1 trillion, or US$ 60 billion, over ten years.This paper zeroes into one of those planned investments, the mega-scale uMkhomazi water infrastructure project in the southeastern region of the country, an inter-basin scheme for improving supplies to more than six million people and industries in the third-largest regional economic hub.The study examines the delayed process of off-taker negotiation of the project funding model and affordability levels, drawing on the direct experiences and perspectives of key project stakeholders, in a participatory manner.Lessons point to the need for project sponsoring and implementing agents to create ample room for negotiation processes to be fully inclusive and robust; enable early and transparent deliberation on project feasibility, funding options and implications for affordability; and take sensitive cognizance of the requirements of local approval structures for recurring capacity building.