FITTING THOUGHT
Directory 2020 www.plumbingafrica.co.za
NEW DAWN OR
QUO VADIS?
T
he plumbing sector is continually fi lling the gap left by
incompetence and dysfunctionality.
The sad thing about the New Dawn spoken by our President is
it just has never risen and is unlikely to with the tea drinking
government service and disastrous SOEs, particularly Eskom
– central to the economy’s reliance on power. The lack of
infrastructure due to incompetent, corrupt and ineffi cient
municipalities does raise the quo vadis, ‘where to now?’, question.
It is unlikely that progress will be made in the current
environment and this is being written before the Minister of
Finance presents his mid-term budget, which is the precursor to
the main budget. If he sticks to his remarks and the chatter going
around the mid-term budget, the way forward has hope.
As an industry, Plumbing Africa has challenged the industry,
engineers, contractors, suppliers, merchants, importers and
manufacturers to their compliance commitment. Those who
chose not to respond have shown their questionable lack of
commitment to compliance and this does not help industry. The
DTI’s inertia to address the basic issue of ‘one can bring it into the
country, sell it, but it cannot be installed’ makes no sense. Despite
the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifi cations (NRCS),
and a member of the DTI family promising to address this, you
guessed it, nothing has happened! Should we be surprised at
this? Not really because industry got itself into this mess and now
will have diffi culty getting out of it.
The whine that “my competitor is bringing in non-compliant
product and is the only way I can compete” is rubbish. Have some
guts and stand up for superiority, compliance and abiding by the
compulsory standards.
We have seen with this directory the impact of the tough
economic times with companies falling by the wayside. We,
ourselves, have made the decision to stop the freebies by not
listing all details of companies clearly not interested in investing
in themselves. So those with logos receive the full listing and the
follow through to the online link to their websites.
So, where to with our industry? We have the PIRB, IOPSA and
latterly the SA Watermark – all produced by members of the
industry with industry and individual investment. The success
of these initiatives is for all to be seen and their bottom line is
SANS, whether it be testing, certifi cation or inspection. So, while
the country swirls around in many directions, the plumbing
sector is continually fi lling the gap left by incompetence and
dysfunctionality. Give credit to these bodies because they are
at least doing something positive. The media will keep them in
check, hence how we value our independence. The media will,
however, not give ear to whiners and whingers who are only self-
serving and do not give back to the industry but only take.
2020 will see change for the better in plumbing as we seek to
challenge and hold to account those whose sole objective is their
own self-interest at the expense of the people of South Africa. It
will be a good year and the weak will fall to the strong and able.
The 2020 annual directory provides an indication of where we
will be going in 2020 and onward. Hope you will be part of
plumbing’s New Dawn!
Rory Macnamara
“The success of these initiatives is for all to be seen and their bottom
line is SANS, whether it be testing, certifi cation or inspection.”
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