WBHO in ‘a good space'

Growth driven predominantly by roads, earthworks, building and civil projects.

- Roy Cokayne

JSE-listed construction and engineering group WBHO is optimistic about its future prospects despite a 6% decline in its order book to R30.59 billion at end-June.

WBHO CEO Wolfgang Neff stressed on Wednesday the group's order book remains at elevated levels and the group has "a good chance of awards of about R35 billion worth of tenders already submitted".

In addition, Neff said the group's total project pipeline has increased by 22% to R259.34 billion at end-June from R211.76 billion in the previous year.

He said the growth in the total project pipeline was driven predominantly by the growth in road and earthworks and building and civil projects "which is quite staggering".

Neff said the level of the project pipeline is the highest he has ever seen it.

"Looking at the pipeline of projects, we are not going to have people or plant sitting [idle] around South Africa in the next two or three years.

"I think WBHO is in a very good space. We all feel a whole lot better about South Africa, well I do.

"Yes, there's a lot of work to be done but the government of national unity [GNU] in South Africa appears to be committed to service delivery and infrastructure development. That will bode well for WBHO," he said.