It is unfortunate that one of the largest consumers of the commodities produced through the mining process, namely China, decided to temper its growth rate from 7.5% in 2014 to 6.7% in 2016. This 0.8% decline meant a sizeable reduction in demand for most commodities, which caught both the mining industry and its service providers off guard, writes Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) CEO CHRISTOPHER CAMPBELL.

Investment in infrastructure in mining developments, as well as transportation infrastructure related to moving commodities from pits to ports, became pedestrian, and in some cases was completely put on hold. To fuel what became a perfect storm, we also saw other markets across the world slow down.

Locally, we probably just added a bit more ‘fat into the fire’ by creating a huge amount of political and policy uncertainty to scare potential investors off even more. The consulting engineering industry, along with others, became a direct victim of this ‘perfect storm’ as projects were put on hold and even investment in further prospecting stalled. This does not bode well for the sustainability of our industry, especially when the effects are not only felt through the local markets but also through international markets such as Zambia, Mozambique and Guinea in Africa as well as much further afield such as Canada, Australia and Chile where our engineering expertise is held in high esteem and much sought after.

Many of our companies in this sector who do not have a diversified service offering targeting either public sector projects or even private sector property development projects have had great difficulty surviving. Those with a multinational footprint have been able to move their resources around to other parts of the world whilst others have had to resort to the unfortunate situation where they had to reduce their staff complement through retrenchment.In a country such as South Africa, where the list of top ten scarce skills is as follows:

1. electrical engineer, 2. civil engineer, 3. mechanical engineer, 7. physical & engineering science technicians, 8. industrial engineer, 10. chemical engineer, with mining engineers most likely omitted in error, an unemployed engineer should be regarded as an aberration.

We therefore cannot afford to lose any of these scarce skills as it can take up to a minimum of 10 to 15 years at least to replace a qualified, experienced and professionally registered engineering practitioner if we start the clock from the time the person has finished high school with a good grounding in mathematics and science, both of which are essential to successfully pursue a degree programme in engineering. If you have succeeded in completing the programme, it takes at least another five years before you have developed enough competence and experience to be registered as a professional with the Engineering Council of South Africa.

Even then, once registered, it takes a bit of time before you start working independently and making expert decisions around the choice of underground support you may need for a specific mining operation.

The limited working opportunities do not bode well for retaining seasoned engineers; and to make matters worse, the most recent Trends in the International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has assessed the matric results of South Africa over the last few years where South Africa came 47th for mathematics and 48th for science out of 59 countries participating in the study worldwide. In another more recent national assessment comparative study (you may have to do some research here) it is rumoured that our Grade 10 results were compared to Grade 9 in other countries. Even worse, the engineering, medicine and commerce sectors are all competing for a small pool of well-performing learners, further limiting the ability to build a future pipeline of engineering practitioners for the future.

Our industry recognises this challenge and though it has been making contributions to investing in the future talent pool, we believe that we need to increase our efforts through contributions at various levels in the developmental process: starting at high school, through university all the way into professional development and employment.

This, of course, is only achievable through the collective efforts of our member firms that have in the past been doing this in a well-intended but fragmented manner.

This well-intended process of skills development will unfortunately also be dependent on economic growth in our country, coupled with political certainty and growing investor confidence. Very little can be done without

financial stability and future predictability in the infrastructure and mining development projects landscape. It is hard to plan a skills pipeline to service an industry which is plagued by a ‘feast and famine’ syndrome.

During the ‘feast’ there are too few practitioners and during the ‘famine’ too many. What is needed is a longer-term view, much as would be required in our National Development Plan, where the demand for infrastructure development is spread out over longer periods as opposed to hoping to have it all done in five years and have no development in the subsequent five years, for example.

In that way, we will be able to ensure a stable skills pipeline that remains employed where young people will continue to aspire to become the engineering practitioners of the future. The sheer numbers of potential engineers from previously disadvantaged communities will in itself transform what was previously an untransformed profession. We just need to work on affording all an equitable opportunity at good quality education and attract them to the profession. 

Sufficient support through the tertiary education process as well as through the developmental process towards becoming a professional engineer is what is needed.

A lot more still needs to be done to attract and retain women in the profession as well. I recall attending a graduation ceremony at Wits University some years ago, either 2011 or 2012, and witnessed a class of at least 20 to 30 black females graduating as mining engineers. I was both excited as this was a good indication of transformation in at least the engineering sector but also concerned as I often wondered whether enough would be done to retain these graduates in an industry that was reputed to be sometimes as ‘abrasive’ as the surface of an underground shaft.

We are of course not ignorant of the fact that investors in mining want instantaneous returns and have very little regard for the sustainability of our industry and other industries related to mining. This is unfortunately short-sighted, because if we do not have regard for that, we will end up with little or no engineering practitioners experienced enough in this field and projects may not even get off the ground, so your investment may not yield any returns anyway.

What is really needed is an approach that seeks to ‘eat your cake a slice at a time for many years to come’ rather than ‘gobble it all away’ over a short period with little or no prospect of finding the source of the next cake.

There seems to be some hope on the horizon though. China’s growth has picked up from 6.7% in 2016 to 6.8% in January 2017 with prospects of further growth towards 7% by year-end. We know of course that China first has to exhaust its current stocks in commodities before the rest of us start seeing demand increase, but surely we should be using the quiet time to invest in gearing for the boom so that we do not lose out as we did with the last boom.

It has been highlighted that mining houses are even not investing enough in prospecting which further begs the question – where is the stock going to come from if we were to, as a country, become competitive in meeting the demands of such a boom?

Another area that has not been adequately explored is how we can use our local engineering expertise to develop more industries around the beneficiation of these commodities. We probably have access to the widest array of minerals in this country and many of the best engineers but not enough local development of products that are integral components to technology developments around the world.

Maybe a more holistic approach to mining needs to be developed between the public and private sector, to which I am sure even consulting engineers and the construction sector as interested and affected parties may be able to make valuable contributions. The impasse between government and the mining industry does not bode well for our sector and we need to ensure that we have a sustainable industry, regulated by constructive and well-informed policy led by competent people who put South Africa first.

It is what we need for the future if we are to develop skills and have more engineers that will be available for infrastructure development – the foundation for economic growth and ultimate poverty alleviation.ABOUT CESA

CESA boasts a proud history of 65 years as the voluntary industry association for consulting engineers. Its member firms, which have grown to over 530 in the past few years, have provided a high standard of consulting engineering services to many industry sectors, public and private, and the mining sector is one of these. It is a self-regulating body established to ensure that its members consistently provide the best quality consulting engineering services to their clients whilst at the same time establishing positive and mutually beneficial relationships with the industries which its members serve to ensure industry sustainability.

This article was originally posted by Mining Review Africa

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