Engineering
At the beginning of 2008, the South African Federation for Civil Engineering Contractors reported that the South African engineering sector exhibited between 13% and 15% growth over the previous three years. It also estimated that this trend is likely to continue for the next 10 to 15 years.
Engineering in the Northern Cape is split between infrastructure and housing developments in the province’s core urban areas, and the development of unique operations seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
The province’s engineers are well supported by national institutes and associations such as those for chemical, electrical and civil engineers.
The South African Institution of Civil Engineering even has two branches in the province, at Kimberley and Upington. Unique engineering projects The Northern Cape and Australia have emerged as competing bidders to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, an international collaboration that will see an array of antenna stations being built to collect data from one million square kilometres of space.
The decision on location will be made in 2009/10. Meanwhile, the Karoo Array Telescope (dubbed the MeerKAT), currently being designed and built in stages in the Northern Cape, could emerge as a key component of the SKA, but, in itself, is highly strategic in South Africa’s space science agenda.
The MeerKAT is being built at a cost of around R900-million and should be commissioned by 2012. The Southern African Large Telescope (Salt) is one engineering marvel that is already operational in Sutherland, in the Northern Cape.
The telescope was inaugurated in 2005 and has been recording distant stars and galaxies a billion times too faint to be seen by the unaided eye. Salt is the largest single-optical telescope in the southern hemisphere and comes equipped with an 11m-wide compound hexagonal mirror.
The construction of Salt was a boost for the local science community and a glowing recommendation for South Africa’s, and the Northern Cape’s, highly skilled engineering community. Expanded Public Works Programme The Expanded Public Works Programme is a national government initiative aimed at the provision of additional work opportunities and training.
Its implementation in the Northern Cape has led to more than 35 000 people being engaged in economic and skills development over the past five years. These labour-intensive operations have encouraged and expedited the transfer of skills, especially in the engineering fields.
Having run its initial five-year course so successfully, national government is extending it for another five years, and spending R4-billion to create 4.5 million jobs.
