Skilled South Africans flooding out of the country

Highly-skilled South Africans are leaving the country, creating a significant skills shortfall at the local government level and increasingly at national departments. 

This is being exacerbated by individuals also looking to leave the public service, as there are opportunities for better remuneration in the private sector. 

The skill shortages that are being felt within local authorities centre around finance and engineering, resulting in substantial mismanagement of resources and infrastructure. 

Stellenbosch University civil engineering Professor Richard Walls told Newzroom Afrika that this skills shortage is one of the main reasons behind South Africa’s deteriorating infrastructure. 

Walls explained that failures in the form of load-shedding, water shortages, and logistics bottlenecks are typically symptoms of underlying problems.

These problems include corruption and wasteful expenditure, red tape, and a shift towards spending on consumption, in the form of salaries, rather than investment in infrastructure. 

The National Treasury has tried to tackle these problems through various initiatives, such as ring-fencing revenue for particular functions and efforts to encourage investment as opposed to consumption. 

However, a major root cause of South Africa’s deteriorating infrastructure that is not typically discussed is a skills shortage at local and national government levels. 

“Engineering capacity has been severely curtailed in South Africa. We have lost a lot of engineers to other countries, such as Canada and Australia,” Walls said. 

“That is often the backbone of infrastructure delivery alongside contractors and the capacity within provincial or national departments.” 

Walls explained that none of this is surprising, with various organisations warning about skills shortfalls over the past decade in South Africa. 

Many of these organisations have also warned about the deteriorating quality of infrastructure, with South Africa’s rating from the local Institute for Civil Engineers falling to a D. 

On its current path, the country is heading towards an E, meaning the infrastructure is unfit for purpose.

“People have done a fantastic job mapping out the change in technical competency within municipalities and the qualifications of individuals employed at a local government level,” Wall said. 

“You will see that there has been a significant loss in professionally registered engineers. That is a big problem when we are losing senior, experienced people who are managing the projects.” 

Private sector stepping in

The government’s desire to increase private participation in the maintenance and construction of infrastructure is not only about capital, but they also want the skills companies have. 

However, Walls said that the private sector has not been immune to the loss of capacity seen across engineering in South Africa. Although it has held up better than the state. 

“There has been, historically, a lot of capacity in the private sector. But a lot of capacity has been lost, again, due to various policies,” Walls said. 

One way to rectify this is to make it easier for contractors to operate in South Africa, with there being a lot of red tape hindering work on infrastructure. 

This needs to be coupled with the state ensuring that the right people get the right jobs and tenders, with some contractors unable to execute project mandates. 

“If our private sector, big contractors and consultancies, through to smaller players, can get involved, the infrastructure gap can be closed if the money gets there, ” Walls said. 

“If there are cash flow problems where a contractor has to wait a year or two to get paid, they end up closing down, and the project is half finished and costs three times as much to finish.” 

“We must be careful of quick fixes, with there being a variety of controls that can be introduced. We can certainly do a lot, and there are organisations that are ready to step in and provide assistance to the government.” 

The issue of non-payment from the government is a serious challenge, with the National Treasury’s latest data pointing to a worsening crisis across national and provincial government departments. 

At the end of the second quarter of 2025, 95,399 invoices older than 30 days with a combined value of R12.4 billion remained unpaid. 

This represents a regression of almost 17%, or an additional 13,663 unpaid invoices, compared to the end of the first quarter, when 81,736 invoices were outstanding.

The value of unpaid invoices has also worsened over time, with National Treasury data showing the value of invoices older than 30 days rose from R11.7 billion at the end of the first quarter to R12.4 billion by the end of the second quarter.