2008 Project Management South Africa (PMSA)

2012 might not seem far away, but for South Africa 2010 - the FIFA World Cup - is just around the corner. Massive infrastructure projects such as the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link are the order of the day. At the biennial project management conference, held by the Project Management South Africa (PMSA) association in Johannesburg from 26–28 May 2008, delegates were exposed to the immensity of these undertakings.

The Gautrain is a state-of-the-art rapid rail commuter link network between Pretoria and Johannesburg with a connecting link to Tambo International Airport. With a budget of £1.2 billion, it is the largest Public Private Partnership (PPP) yet launched in South Africa. The contractual documents alone consist of 80,000 pages and took over a year of legal input to define. For this work, Gautrain received the international award for the Best Global Project to Sign (Public Private Finance Awards, London 2007).

The Bombela Consortium formed to build Gautrain includes Bombardier Transportation in Derby, who are building the new state-of-the-art trains. So if you see some rather large trains heading for the docks you know where they are going! South Africa has a proud history in project management.

The PMSA association has over 1,300 members and the 2008 three-day conference was well attended, with an international speaker line-up. Louise Worsley, of CITI, presented a peer-reviewed paper highlighting the need to revise selection and recruitment procedures in the face of an environment where demand for project managers exceeds supply - a critical concern in South Africa where the ‘brain drain’, particularly to the Middle East and Europe, is considered a major barrier to the delivery of projects.

For a copy of the conference paper - click here

For further information on Gautrain see their award-winning website www.gautrain.co.za