The current consulting engineering procurement approach – dominated by price, with functionality and quality only being minimum prequalification thresholds – is reducing consulting engineering services to a commodity as opposed to being “trusted advisers”, Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) president Abe Thela said on Monday.

Speaking at the 2014 Civilution Congress, in Kempton Park, he said the focus on price when procuring consulting engineering services also compromised the ability of the industry to innovate, train staff and attract young people.

“Current regulation has reduced [the hiring of] a trusted adviser to [that of hiring a contractor],” Thela said, reiterating that this was not the preferred situation.

He further said, according to CESA, various aspects had to be included in the basis for the procurement of consulting engineering services, such as "Constitutional elements", to ensure that the process was equitable, transparent, fair, competitive and cost effective.

The aim of procuring consulting engineering services further had to focus on doing so under the best possible terms and optimising project life cycle costs.

Meanwhile, international best practice, such as qualification-based selection (QBS), also had to be considered.

According to the QBS system, quality and competence of consulting engineering services was considered when undertaking procurement, project scope was developed jointly, services required to mutually develop the scope were agreed upon and an equitable fee was negotiated.

If this approach was followed, it would reinforce the “trusted adviser” status of the consulting engineer, it would ensure that adequate resources were deployed and that value was added. This  would all translate into savings for the taxpayer and the community, said Thela.

Therefore, CESA was proposing the reintroduction of quality as a part of the total procurement points calculation for South African projects, alongside broad-based black economic empowerment and price.

The organisation was also calling for the procurement of basic engineering packages to be separated from the procurement of general goods and services and a comprehensive review of the existing procurement system.

“At the moment, we know what individual clients are saying but we need to find out what the impact is on the greater system,” Thela said.

He noted that CESA was currently engaging government on this proposal on a National Treasury level and through the infrastructure task team, which combined business and government entities.