When President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that “we have the money and the political will to deliver infrastructure, we must just do it” he echoed the sentiment of stakeholders in the construction industry about the current state of industry’s performance. The President was speaking at the 2025 National Construction Summit held by the Construction Industry Development Board (cidb) and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure on 14 and 15 November 2025 in Johannesburg, under the theme: unlocking infrastructure delivery; raising construction industry performance.
Public sector clients, like President Ramaphosa, are just as concerned about delivery efficiency in the construction industry. South Africa’s goal of an infrastructure-led economy needs a high performing construction industry to materialise.
The cidb/ DPWI November 2025 summit focus on performance brought into sharp focus deficiencies in performance which stand between the substantial investment that government continues to make annually to infrastructure, and our ability to deliver schools, hospitals, roads, railways, bridges and other assets meant to facilitate service delivery, improve lives, grow the economy and raise the attractiveness of the country to private investors.
But improving efficiency is not the role of just one role-player. Contractors, consultants, labour and clients, all have a crucial role to play. Clients more so, as the owners and initiators of infrastructure development and therefore, the people who source the services of others to build the nation’s dreams.
The cidb, along with other regulators, plays a crucial role of establishing the regulatory systems and framework for governance in the sourcing of contractor services to ensure performance and accountability. Through the Register of Contractors, the cidb implements and manages a grading system which ranks contractors according to their capability to carry out construction projects based on their works experience and financial resources. It is a macro-risk assessment tool at the disposal of public sector clients nationally. Clients must apply the register in procurement of contractors’ services. This promotes fairness and level playing fields and facilitates the country’s development and transformation agenda.
Whilst macro-risk assessment provides a degree of assurance on the one hand, it equally puts responsibility for micro risk management at the project level on the shoulders of the clients. The cidb Standard for Uniformity for engineering and construction works enjoins client to conduct due diligence when sourcing contractors, to ensure a perfect fit between the project and a contractor. This is crucial to the success of the project.
Individual classes of construction work, such as general building and civil engineering encompass a wide variety of specialisations and expertise, requiring the client to conduct a thorough analysis of the experience and expertise required by the individual project when deciding on a contractor. A perfect project and contractor fit increases chances of a project’s success exponentially by leaving little to chance while putting control firmly in the hands of the client. The Standard for Uniformity strengthens this power further, by allowing the client to determine the criteria for evaluation of tenders based on the client’s own assessment of the level of complexity or specialisation required by the project.
Once the project is assigned a contractor, the real performance tracking begins when the client registers the project on the cidb Register of projects. This is where project success is recorded but where performance failures are also shared among clients to protect the industry and the public. The client must register project cancellation, termination or an abandoned project for both the cidb and other clients to know who poor performing contractors are. It is an empowering tool that all clients must comply with and use, to give the cidb essential data to act against poor performing contractors thus protecting the wider industry from serial failures.
A common cause of project failure is contractors biting more than they can chew by accepting projects way beyond their capacity to deliver. This is where the cidb Register of Projects provides real insight to the client, of the contractor’s existing commitments, an early warning system to heighten due diligent to avert potential project failure.
One of the key outcomes of the 2025 National Construction Summit was endorsing of performance reports by industry players, including policy makers, public sector clients, contractors and consultants. When in full operation performance reports will enable a three-way reporting system where the contractor, the client and the consultant will rate each other’s performance on a project. This provides a 360% performance review where all parties hold each other accountable. Ultimately the reviews, together with performance tracking via the Register of Projects will facilitate an open, fair, transparent and informed grading of contractors based on real time data and continuous assessment.
The cidb is committed to providing clients with a reliable contractor grading system that has integrity and promotes high standards of performance in the construction sector. But compliance and collaboration among players in the delivery value chain is critical.
cidb remains vigilant in the fight against fraud and corruption, and its zero-tolerance approach is at the centre of the recent deregistration of 40 contractors who tried to acquire grades through ill-gotten means. The 40 contractors were further blacklisted by the Department of Public Works barring them from doing business with the state. Stakeholders are encouraged to use available means, such as the cidb hotline, to report suspicion of fraud and corruption. cidb partnership with law enforcement agencies further ensures that suspected criminal behaviour is appropriately referred for investigation.
Working together stakeholders including clients and contractors, the construction industry can turn the flow, ramp up performance and claim infrastructure’s rightful place in the country’s economy.