FAQs

Infrastructure South Africa is mandated to:

• Lead the national infrastructure strategy by defining and planning the infrastructure investment portfolio of high impact, priority and quality economic and social infrastructure projects to meet the NDP and NIP 2050 objectives.
• Through the ISA Centre of Excellence, drive best practice thinking in terms of infrastructure research and analysis, trends, future scenarios and insights.
• Enable stakeholder collaboration by convening and bringing together stakeholders, including project sponsors, policy makers, private sector etc to drive infrastructure planning and delivery integration. 
• Through the Portfolio Management Office, ISA drives best practice enforcement by maintaining best practice governance and assurance for infrastructure projects and programmes.
• Provide support to project sponsors in the development of robust business cases through specialised project evaluation expertise and financial structuring and designing fit-for-purpose funding solutions for public sector infrastructure projects and programmes.

• ISA is a “Single Point of Entry” for infrastructure investment and coordination.
• Working with project owners and sponsors, ISA develops a credible infrastructure pipeline of high-impact infrastructure projects which are bankable and fundable.
• ISA is a catalyst for financing of public sector infrastructure projects in order to improve the quality and rate of infrastructure investment by partnering with the private sector.
• ISA should be a catalyst for the revision of the public sector infrastructure delivery institutional design by establishing itself as the single point of entry for infrastructure investment and coordination.
• ISA is a Centre of Excellence for infrastructure strategy, planning and development, and strategic oversight.
• ISA is a catalyst to closing the infrastructure investment gap and meeting the infrastructure investment target set out in the NDP 2030.
• ISA aims to expedite bankable project preparation in line with national objectives.
• ISA creates visibility of the pipeline of strategic priority infrastructure projects by monitoring and reporting on the implementation priority projects.
• ISA is a catalyst to the state improving project delivery across the infrastructure development value chain.

In exceptional cases, Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) will review infrastructure investment projects and programmes below the R1 billion threshold if they are able to demonstrate that they hold a significant strategic contribution to South Africa’s short and long-term socio-economic development. These projects will need to demonstrate that they are in alignment with guiding development policy frameworks, such as the: National Development Plan (NDP), National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) 2050, Infrastructure Development Act (IDA), National Spatial Development Framework (NSDF), Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan (ERRP).

Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) does not provide grant funding, project funding or financing directly to Project Sponsors from either the private or public sectors. The mandate of ISA is to support Project Sponsors with project preparation, through the SIDS Methodology, to ensure that their projects reach the bankability stage.

Although Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) does not provide direct project funding, projects that are registered with ISA will go through the SIDS Methodology, utilising defined processes that support business case development, to ensure that they reach the bankability feasibility stage. These processes are dependent on project readiness, the complexity of the work that needs to be completed, as well as the proposed allocated time frames for each project. There is no set period for projects to reach bankable feasibility level. However, in terms of the infrastructure investments projects appraisal and approval process, as soon as a project is approved for registration with ISA, the Early Business Case must be concluded within 6 months.

The SIDS Methodology adopts the Five Case Model from the UK Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA); an internationally recognised best practice methodology for business case development. This methodology is recognised by both local and internal Development Finance Institutions (DFI) for infrastructure project preparation phase. Using this methodology, ISA seeks to establish the strategic fit, social and commercial viability of projects and programmes and offer support to Project Sponsors to develop their early, intermediate, and final business cases in line with best practice standards.

The SIDS Methodology provides guidance for project sponsors or developers to take their projects from concept phase to achieving bankable feasibility. Support is offered to project sponsors to develop their early, intermediate, and final business cases to ensure that projects are strategically aligned, economically and socially desirable, commercially viable, affordable, and implementable. The process is designed with the requirements by the National Treasury in terms of funding for capital projects via the Budget Facility for Infrastructure (BFI) and the Public Private Partnership (PPP) process. In addition the methodology aligns with the requirements for funding of capital projects by the Infrastructure Fund (those projects that qualify for blended finance).

The following benefits are achievable for sponsors or developers:

• There is a defined process or roadmap to take projects from concept to bankable feasibility studies, which is an internationally recognised process that aligns with the requirements by the National Treasury, Infrastructure Fund, as well as local and international DFIs.
• Projects can obtain visibility to investors through the SOURCE system, which is accessed by infrastructure projects funding and financing institutions.
• Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) provides support to private sector infrastructure projects in terms of unblocking and navigating processes in government to unlock infrastructure investments.

Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) focuses on both economic and social infrastructure projects and programmes. These projects and programmes must have a project value of R1 billion and above.

• Unblocking support on projects especially within the regulation and permitting phase in line with the provisions of the Infrastructure Development Act.
• ISA provides project preparation support.
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Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) accesses technical support from the Technical Advisory Panel as well as resources in the form of secondees from the private sector. ISA also works closely with local and international funding and financing institutions that provide project preparation support. ISA also leverages the technical capacity of the Infrastructure Fund for this purpose. This is in addition to the internal capacity of the team to support project sponsors on project preparation.

When an infrastructure investment project is registered with Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) and complies with the registration criteria, it is submitted for approval to the Infrastructure Investment Review Committee (IIRC) and a decision by the IIRC is communicated within a month to the project owner. As the project moves from Early Business Case, to Intermediate Business Case and Final Business Case, ISA remains in close contact with project owners and sponsors throughout the process.

1. The Project Sponsor completes the registration form. 
2. Projects then go through a registration process.
3. ISA has a Portfolio Management Office which, inter alia, ensures that the registration requirements are complied with and submits the application to the Infrastructure Investment Review Committee (IIRC) for approval. 
4. An Early Business Case is developed and submitted to the IIRC for approval.
5. The Intermediate Business Case is developed and submitted to the IIRC for approval
6. When the IBC is approved by the IIRC, it is submitted to the National Treasury, DFIs and other funding and financing institutions for funding decisions to be made.
7. When the funding decisions are made, Infrastructure South Africa submits the project or programme to the PICC Council and/or Cabinet to approve the project as a Strategic Integrated Project.
8. Following Cabinet’s approval, the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure gazettes projects as SIPs, as per the provisions of the Infrastructure Development Act.

The Infrastructure Development Act (IDA) 23 of 2014 is a key guiding policy framework for infrastructure development in South Africa. The aim of the IDA is to:

• Provide for the facilitation and co-ordination of public infrastructure development which is of significant economic or social importance to the Republic.
• Ensure that infrastructure development in the Republic is given priority in planning, approval, and implementation. Schedule 2 of the Act allows for a shorter period for the regulation and permitting of projects.
• Ensure that the development goals of the State are promoted through infrastructure development.
• Improve the management of strategic infrastructure during all life-cycle phases, including planning, approval, implementation, and operations.