Listen here.Infrastructure failure has become a core business risk in South Africa. In this interview with Chris Steyn, international ISO standards and systems implementation specialist Muhammad Ali warns: “...infrastructure is not just decaying, it's going down the drain to its limit’. He notes that while systems and standards exist, “it's just up to the right leadership, the right party to acknowledge and implement effectively”. Ali describes how Barcelona, for instance, has optimised service delivery with an App that connects citizens to municipalities “...they take a picture of that particular pothole and then the smart cameras verify and validate that that pothole is there. That particular ticket that gets logged in gets quickly sent out to the relevant community, the SMMEs and QSEs or contractors-to-be who are approved and vetted and validated to give a quotation on exactly who can do this work with the best price, the best quality, the best time. And automatically, without any human intervention, it denotes through a criteria of selection who the vendor is and issues them with an order. They are given three days to be able to complete this exercise with a picture and the camera validating this, and they are paid within seven days.” Meanwhile, back here “these syndicates and extortion in South Africa has become a movie. We're living in Hollywood and I think Hollywood is actually getting scripts from South African day-to-day lifestyles….So we've got a long way to go in terms of having the right leadership, having the right… accountability.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.521)Infrastructure decay is threatening the survival of many South African businesses. I speak to Muhammad Ali, the MD of WWISE. Welcome Mr. Ali.Muhammad Ali (00:13.72)Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Chris.Chris Steyn (00:17.363)Well, you are keeping a close watch on how municipal instability, lack of water, irregular power supply, failing logistics are impacting South African businesses. What are you seeing?Muhammad Ali (00:33.26)It's actually quite sad to see. You know, once upon a time being one of the pioneers, when it came to infrastructure in South Africa, to seeing where we've gone now. And I think a lot is a result of, you know, poor leadership, poor management. But I think we've gone very reactive as opposed to proactive. So we don't foresee what the risks are and come up with the right mitigation and the right systems. We wait for it to occur. And when it happens, it's too late. Then we are scrambling for budget, scrambling for the right contractor to be able to assist us. And these quick fixes, unfortunately, these bandages that we keep on putting on over and over again, and just… the wound is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And it's just this infrastructure decay, along with the climate change issues that we're having. And we're not having the right competent people with the true leadership guiding us in the right direction. I think accountability and consequence management has totally fallen away.And foreign investors are now looking at South Africa and red flagging this country, which is actually quite sad because we have the capability. We have the skills. We have the opportunities to be able to progress. But I think the basic needs of power, water, you know, in terms of even just looking at your roads and infrastructure is not just decaying, it's going down the drain to its limit.Chris Steyn (01:56.639)So many businesses can no longer rely on contingency plans. What practical suggestions do you have for them?Muhammad Ali (02:06.774)I think the one narrative that people like to say is that, know, we as South Africa are much better than all the other African countries. And I don't think that's a good comparison because you need to look at where South Africa was and then compare that to where you are now. And then look at the statistics from International Transparency.Org of where we were from a corruption point of view about eight to 10 years ago and where we are now, falling down the scale rapidly.Where is it that the solutions lie, if you may ask? And I think a good case study is to look at countries like Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, where they were able to develop the economy on the foundational basis of international and national standards. So they looked at these standards that come with great, great reviews. It wasn't just me that created or South Africa created 174 countries that are set around the the table to develop best practice standards. And this guides your municipalities, your private sectors, your all the different sectors to be able to understand what to document, what to implement, what to simulate and go through lessons learned so you can progressively improve. But this will not work if you don't have leaders that are actually looking forefront as well as taking full accountability and knowing what consequence management is, meaning that when someone does have an error or takes advantage of the system, they are dealt with the might of the law and we trust the justice system to be able to take the necessary steps to be able to ensure justice has been served.Chris Steyn (03:46.065)If the political will could be found, how long would it take for South Africa's infrastructures to recover?Muhammad Ali (03:56.012)I think that's a very good question. I think it's a very difficult situation that South Africa is in. I think we've got a lot of political appointments. We've got a lot of nepotism in our what you call a public sector. And we've got a lot of people that have been appointed without the right competency or experience in guiding them. More so when the competent people are in power, they don't have the trust to be able to sign off on something because they are a target all the time. So decisions are being delayed. In my honest opinion, if you look at what history has taught us in Singapore, it took about between five to six decades of them being able to transition into it. So if we do not do it now, our grandchildren will not benefit. And they are the ones that may see the light at the end of the tunnel if we start implementing the right governance, the right structures, the right systems.Just an interesting fun fact, I was doing a case study with Barcelona and Barcelona have done something very interesting. It's very similar to what South Africa is facing right now. Don't look at Barcelona as, you know, the pivot of glory. They also have their challenges when it comes to crime and infrastructure, etc. But what they've done is systematic. And I think this is the focus on it. For example, if there's a pothole that comes up in Barcelona, then it's very important for a citizen to have an app that's connected to the municipal, what you call institutions. And then they take a picture of that particular pothole and then the smart cameras verify and validate that that pothole is there. That particular ticket that gets logged in gets quickly sent out to the relevant community, the SMMEs and QSEs to or contractors to be who are approved and vetted and validated to give a quotation on exactly who can do this work with the best price, the best quality, the best time. And automatically, without any human intervention, it denotes through a criteria of selection who the vendor is and issues them with an order. They are given three days to be able to complete this exercise with a picture and the camera validating this, and they are paid within seven days. Now, this is automating the process to be able to optimise service delivery. And the reasons why South Africa will not go down this route, because it is…Muhammad Ali (06:19.468)…the importance because people are taking advantage of this entire loophole. So they don't want systems. They will keep fear with technology in you and saying that jobs will be taken away without looking at the benefits that it can provide to the society, to the community and where resources can look at something more pragmatic to be able to allow them to succeed, you know, as a person. So this is the dilemma we're sitting in. But there's a good case study to see the opportunities that are out there in the world, which we could actually implement in benefit.Chris Steyn (06:49.032)That system you just described would obviously completely eradicate corruption.Muhammad Ali (06:56.206)Correct. Yes. And I think these systems and these standards are there. It's just up to the right leadership, the right party to acknowledge and implement effectively. And now the problem is that we were talking earlier, there's too many syndicates. I mean, you see any whistleblower now that's actually being targeted and, you know, anyone from the justice system that sees what is right and does the right thing is actually taken out.And these syndicates and extortion in South Africa has become a movie. We're living in Hollywood and I think Hollywood are actually getting scripts from South African day to day lifestyles. That's how sad it unfortunately is because we've gone bold in terms of crime and we are going so bold because we we know that the justice system will sort of protect us.So we've got a long way to go in terms of having the right leadership, having the right, you know, accountability. And it's t's a holistic change that will need to be implemented before we actually start seeing some sort of benefit.Chris Steyn (07:59.016)Even if political will could be found, say for instance in Johannesburg, there's a new mayor, but the city is technically bankrupt. So with the best political intentions, where do they find the funds to fix the infrastructure?Muhammad Ali (08:15.2)It's a very good point. And I think that's where we're going out. We're going to the World Health Organisation. We're going to the large funders…within the United Nations or within the European Union who have these particular, you know, budgets available to be able to invest in our country and economy in return for either minerals or other human resources or whatever it may be. These are good potentials. But here's the conundrum…recently I was assisting an organisation in the IT sector. And they were working with a company in the US and the US had red flags of Africa of being unethical and corrupt. So they imposed a particular standard, which is IS 37001, which is an anti-bribery management system. They wanted this company in South Africa to implement the system to have the right policies…the right processes and to be audited by an independent third party certification body that gives them a certificate to say you have an anti-bribery management system in place. You're going to do business in an ethical way. You have the right whistleblowing. There's no corruption, no top management taking benefit for their own gain. All of that is in place. Once that certification was granted, the risk was sort of mitigated for them to continue this discussion.And I think that's what the large funders are now requiring us to do is because it's not as easy as going to the bank like we would to get a loan. Now there's a significant amount of due diligence required from these foreign investors. They're not willing to put their funds, they're not willing to put their particular signature without the confidence. And they're now requesting more regulation in place. And that is why companies are starting to implement these standards to be able to get this foreign investment in. But imagine if we could do that in the public sector. Imagine if we could implement this and have it effectively done and automated. There would be so much more trust. There would be so much. And that's the starting point. And it won't happen overnight or over a couple of decades. But progressively, you would see more foreign investors coming in to be able to develop our economy and get us more jobs. That is what we all want.Chris Steyn (10:17.951)Are there any other countries in the world currently in a similar situation to South Africa with failing infrastructure and lack of political will to deal with it? And if so, how are they coping? How are they managing?Muhammad Ali (10:33.967)We're sitting in very difficult worlds right now. I mean, you look around within the globe, whether it's South America, whether it's North America, whether it's Africa as a whole and whether it's Asia, you see there's a lot of issues. If you go places like Australia, yes, the taxes are very high but at least systems work and people then are happy because systems work.And that's what all people want is they want their medical systems to work. They want the basic necessities of clean water, sanitation, cleanliness, hygiene, power, all of these necessities. So I think if these are being fulfilled, people will not have an issue.But unfortunately in Africa, we're not the only country that's going down through this drain, whether it's Nigeria, whether it's Egypt, as much as they're progressing, they're also digressing.Chris Steyn (12:13.631)Well, lastly, you're talking about businesses having to wait decades to have optimum operating environments again. In the meantime, what emergency measures would you advise?Muhammad Ali (12:30.479)I think it's a very difficult philosophy and I always say you need to learn how to hustle and adapt. We were very good at hustling and adapting during COVID-19. You know, where we had to work from home, we still needed to get a salary, we still needed to be able to, you know, take the children needed to go to school and they were able to encounter all of that. I think that's what businesses need to start doing is if you're in a niche environment or industry. Gone are the...the theories that you learn in university or in school where you just stick to that. I think you need to start diversifying. You need to look at exactly what other opportunities in your business out there is actually providing sustainable income. And I think that's what you need to chase. All QSEs and SMMEs need to chase the sustainable income to keep them afloat and also keep the employees happy. And I think the pride from an employee perspective has to be taken into account where you can't be manipulated with the drama of social media to become rich overnight. It is a process. If I want to lose weight and I attempt to go to the gym, I cannot expect to go to the gym on the first day and go on to the scale and expect to have lost a kilo or two. It is a progressive, consistent process that needs to be taken with hard work and effort, which yields the results. And I'm not too sure if the QSE and SMME have the appetite or the employees in the new generation have the willingness to be able to to pull it through and all the social media that portrays us out there in terms of becoming rich with trading or social media influence, it's a very few. Same like in the world. Very few do make it. There is progress, but I think what we need to do is strut it out, diversify, look at opportunities, sustainable opportunities, and look at how we can be able to ensure that we can keep surviving.Chris Steyn (14:24.467)Thank you. That was Muhammad Ali, the MD of WWISE, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Mr. Ali.Muhammad Ali (14:31.897)Thank you so much, Chris. Appreciate it.