Page 9 - DOE Infrastructure Project List

Pro le
Mr Thabang Monare
Director
Physical Resources Planning & Property Management
“Work with what you have (we never have enough of anything)”, this is the motto that Thabang Monare, a seasoned professional in the construction and property management arena lives by.
Having occupied his current position for the past three years, Thabang is still a ‘newbie’ in the Department. He, however, has broad experience and skills in the construction and property management elds having worked in the private sector consulting space and later in the local government environment where he dealt with land use applications, town planning, building control, and human settlements administration. Thabang also has experience in the Higher Education environment looking at infrastructure development and facilities management for universities.
Thabang’s area of work entails physical resources planning and property management.
“The planning side of the infrastructure programme is an involved process”, explains Thabang. “This includes project selection, prioritisation, feasibility, preparation and nally handing over to delivery for implementation. Property management on the other hand deals with land acquisitions and property disposals, land treatment in terms of ownership, zoning and sub-division, amongst others.”
The Directorate managed by Thabang is also responsible for compilation of the User Asset Management Plan (U-AMP) which outlines how the infrastructure required by the Department to deliver on its mandate over the medium and long-term will be acquired, rehabilitated, maintained and funded.
Reminiscing about the early days Thabang explains there was barely a team to do infrastructure planning when he started at the Department in 2015 and consequently most team members in this unit are new. He also explains that the vault of information captured on the EFMS was not utilised for planning purposes and that data handling and document management, which plays a pivotal role in planning processes has vastly improved since then.
Thabang considers effective communication key to successful planning. Communication with various stakeholders has improved over the years. There is a better interface between the Department and the Accelerated Schools Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) and the schools’ rationalisation and realignment programme, for example. Communication has also improved between the districts and head of ce and there are several structures in place to facilitate effective communication and sound governance.
When asked about improvements he would like to see in the infrastructure environment Thabang says, “One of the greatest challenges we face as a country and a province is the lack of integrated infrastructure planning with strategic projects that support skills development and enable economic development at a micro level. It is critical that strong inter-governmental relations are forged – where these do exist, they work well, however, we can do much better in this area to ensure a better-coordinated approach to infrastructure planning.”
Infrastructure Project List 2018/19 | 6