EMERGING contractors should learn to be patient and understand the industry jargon and regulations, Deputy Public Works Minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu said yesterday.

Bogopane-Zulu was addressing more than 400 emerging contractors at the Soweto Small and Emerging Contractor Indaba held at the University of Johannesburg, Soweto Campus.

Bogopane-Zulu said the emerging contractors' lack of understanding of the regulatory framework and language deprived them of government work and growth.

The conference was organised by Cashbuild to empower emerging contractors with skills to enable them to interact with government departments and agencies involved in the industry.

"If you are to make money in the construction industry you must first master the jargon and the rules and that takes a lot of patience.

"t can take you three to five years but you must keep at it patiently," Bogopane-Zulu said.

She said her department was also complying with the blacklisting of corrupt companies as required by the Treasury.

"For example, if we give a contractor a project and that contractor does not finish the project, we provide the details of that contractor to the Treasury."

She said before a contractor is blacklisted the Department of Public Works had programmes to assist the contractor with whatever challenges he might have delivering the project.

Bogopane-Zulu conceded that transformation was still a challenge in the construction sector, with big firms in joint ventures with small ones, while the money went to the same people.

"We have an incubator programme to which we bring people for mentoring so that they can go up and move with the CIDB (Construction Industry Development Board) grades," she said.

She also advised contractors to form joint ventures among themselves and find niche labour intensive aspects in government's Expanded Public Works Programme.

She said that if contractors employed more people they would receive incentives.

She said the Independent Development Corporation had introduced a funding model that was focused on the construction sector.