Founded in 2023 by a registered civil engineer with a decade of World Bank and African Development Bank funded project experience, SouthGrid Engineering Consultants has designed a 52 metre river crossing bridge and contributed to over 127 kilometres of road works, entirely as a sub consultant inside larger joint ventures on Road Development Agency and Ministry of Local Government programmes.
By The Zambian Economist Analyst
SouthGrid Engineering Consultants Limited has, by its own account, existed for less than three years. In that time the small Lusaka firm has put its name on the detailed design of a 52 metre steel concrete composite bridge over the Bweengwa River, contributed engineering drawings for roughly 19 township roads in Chipata and Chadiza, and worked on rehabilitation designs for more than 10 kilometres of urban roads in Mazabuka, all as a sub consultant inside larger, multi firm teams delivering for the Road Development Agency (RDA) and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
The firm’s Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Lead Consultant is Willings Sichalwe, a Registered Professional Civil Engineer with the Engineers Registration Board of Zambia (EngRB No. SMENG202101790) and a full member of the Engineering Institution of Zambia. His career, and the firm he built around it, offer a specific answer to a question that has become louder in Zambia’s infrastructure sector in 2026: what does it take for a citizen owned engineering consultancy to win a seat at the table on donor funded and government infrastructure programmes still dominated by larger regional and international firms.
A Small Firm With a Big Portfolio
| Year founded | 2023 |
| Engineering disciplines | 11 |
| Representative projects published | 5 |
| Roads engineered | 127+ km across confirmed project scopes |
| Longest bridge span designed | 52 metres (steel concrete composite I-girder) |
| Engineering and technical staff | 5 |
| Head office | Northmead, Lusaka |
That combination, a five person technical team credited with more than 127 kilometres of road works and a landmark bridge design, only makes sense once the firm’s business model is understood. SouthGrid has not competed for RDA or ministry contracts on its own. It has won work as a sub consultant, most often alongside Kaplum and Associates Limited, a larger consulting engineering, architecture and project management practice where Sichalwe has separately worked as Design Engineer and Projects Manager since June 2024, and on two projects alongside a firm called ARZ.
Five Projects That Show the Model
- Chipata and Chadiza township roads, RDA. Detailed engineering design of about 19 urban and township roads, roughly 16.7 km in total, in Eastern Province. Sub consultant to lead consultant Kaplum and Associates, in joint venture with Finix Engineering Solutions. March to July 2025. Scope covered hydrology, drainage assessment, pavement investigation, and geometric and structural design.
- Bweengwa River crossing bridge, RDA. Detailed engineering design of a 52 metre steel concrete composite I-girder bridge in Southern Province. Sub consultant to Kaplum and Associates. January to July 2025. Included geotechnical investigation, evaluation of bridge options, hydraulic clearance and pier design, cost estimation, and road safety upgrades on the approach roads.
- Mazabuka township roads, Lot 5, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. Rehabilitation and upgrading to bituminous standard of about 10.7 km of township roads across eight named routes. Sub consultant to Kaplum and Associates. June 2024 to July 2025. Included topographic survey, traffic studies and preparation of tender documentation.
- Sinazongwe Road, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. Geometric engineering design and construction drawings for upgrading to bituminous standard, including the section leading to the civic centre. Sub consultant to lead consultant ARZ. April to May 2024.
- Zambia Sugar Plc internal roads, Nakambala Estate. Geometric design and construction drawings for selected internal estate roads for the private client. Design consultant to lead consultant ARZ. August to September 2023, the year SouthGrid states it was founded.
Eleven Disciplines Under One Roof
SouthGrid’s capability statement lists eleven engineering disciplines in total, running from civil, structural and transport infrastructure engineering through water resources and hydraulic engineering, dam engineering, hydrology and geotechnical work, to environmental and social advisory services and project management and construction supervision. Six areas are singled out in its own marketing as specialisms that set it apart on assignment: hydrology and flood modelling, dam safety and hydraulic analysis, bridge and structural engineering, GIS and digital engineering, geotechnical and foundation work, and a track record operating inside multi firm joint ventures.
Digital tools, computer aided design, geographic information systems, hydrological and hydraulic modelling, and Building Information Modelling where applicable, are presented as running through every discipline rather than sitting as a separate service line, a reflection of how much of SouthGrid’s actual project work to date, drainage assessments, flood and hydraulic analysis for the Bweengwa bridge, catchment studies for road corridors, has been water and hydrology led.
The Engineer Behind the Firm
Sichalwe’s path into engineering started outside Zambia. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Russian State Agrarian University (MSUEE) in Moscow in 2015, after A Level and Russian language study at Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies. He is now completing a Master of Engineering in Structural Engineering at the University of Zambia, with a thesis comparing how traffic load variations affect the structural performance of rigid and flexible pavements.
His CV lists just over a decade of practice. Between 2015 and 2019 he worked as a Water and Sanitation Junior Design Engineer at Andosa Consulting Engineers on feasibility studies and designs for water supply, sewer systems and treatment works, and separately as an Inspector of Works on the 122 km, US$142 million Kawambwa to Mporokoso Road, and as a Roads and Drainage Engineer for Chinsali Municipal Council on a ZMW294.3 million urban roads programme.
From May 2021 to June 2024 he worked at Bicon Zambia Consulting Engineers across several World Bank IDA funded Output and Performance based Road Contracts, among them Quality Assurance Engineer on Package 17 in Western Province (ZMW120.9 million), Materials and Pavement Engineer on Package 6 in Northwestern Province (ZMW169.7 million), Drainage and Hydrology Engineer on Package 3 in Eastern Province (ZMW180.7 million), and Assistant Resident Engineer on the T6 Katete to Chanida (55 km, ZMW256.9 million) and M12 Chipata to Lundazi (90 km, ZMW369.4 million) emergency maintenance programmes.
Since June 2024 he has held a design engineer and projects manager role at Kaplum and Associates, where his responsibilities include acting as Engineer’s Representative under FIDIC MDB Harmonised Conditions of Contract and leading hydrological and hydraulic design for two large dams and four bridges, including the Bweengwa crossing. He founded SouthGrid in the same period and, per his CV, took up the role of Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Lead Consultant full time from August 2025, a role he now holds alongside his position at Kaplum.
Beyond project work, Sichalwe serves as a Council Member of the Future Leaders Committee under the Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia (ACEZ). He has also written for The Zambian Economist on ethical leadership and institutional integrity in the engineering profession, and on the financing structures he argues put Zambian owned contractors at a disadvantage against state backed foreign competitors.
Local Capacity in a Market Built on Joint Ventures
None of SouthGrid’s five representative projects were won outright. Every one lists a larger firm, Kaplum and Associates on three, ARZ on the other two, as lead consultant, with SouthGrid credited as sub consultant or design consultant. That looks like a deliberate entry strategy rather than an incidental detail. Zambia’s donor funded road and bridge programmes are typically procured at a scale that favours firms with established track records and balance sheets, and a two year old, five person practice has little chance of qualifying as lead consultant on an RDA or World Bank tender in its own right. Working inside multi firm consortia lets a young firm like SouthGrid put real, attributable technical work, a bridge design here, a drainage assessment there, on a record that can eventually support an independent bid.
It is also the same market dynamic Sichalwe has written about directly. In a July 2026 analysis for The Zambian Economist, The Economics of Exclusion: How Financing Asymmetry Is Squeezing Zambian Contractors Out of Their Own Market, he argued that financing structures favouring foreign, state backed contractors over Zambian firms are squeezing local capacity out of a construction sector Zambia will eventually need to run itself. SouthGrid’s own project list, assembled almost entirely through sub consultant roles inside joint ventures, reads as one small firm’s practical response to the problem its founder describes at a policy level.
What This Means
For Zambia’s infrastructure pipeline
SouthGrid’s project list is a reminder that even signature assets, a 52 metre bridge, kilometres of rehabilitated urban roads, are frequently the product of several firms working under one lead consultant, not a single named contractor. Understanding who actually did the technical work, not just who signed the contract, matters for anyone assessing where domestic engineering capacity is genuinely being built.
For local contractors and financiers
The sub consultant route SouthGrid has used mirrors a local content debate already playing out in mining under Statutory Instrument No. 68 of 2025, which requires large miners to lift local procurement from around 20% toward 40%. Construction has no equivalent binding local content rule. The financing gap that keeps many small Zambian firms locked out of larger, longer dated contracts, the same gap that leaves SME borrowers paying rates in the low to mid 30s percent against a 14% Bank of Zambia policy rate, is one reason firms like SouthGrid rely on joint ventures rather than standalone bids.
For policymakers
If Zambia wants more locally owned firms capable of leading, rather than sub contracting on, major infrastructure programmes, the joint venture route SouthGrid has taken shows both that the pathway exists and that it is slow. Three years and five credited projects is a realistic pace for a small firm building a track record inside the current procurement and financing environment, not evidence that the environment itself needs no attention.
What Comes Next
SouthGrid’s own materials set out ambitions beyond its current five projects: regional growth across the Southern African Development Community, a broader base of engineering and technical staff, and continued investment in digital engineering tools. The firm frames its environmental, social and governance approach around climate resilient design and stakeholder engagement, and lists the World Bank, the African Development Bank and KfW among its target funding partners, alongside the RDA and the Ministries of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development and of Local Government and Rural Development.
Whether SouthGrid moves from sub consultant to lead consultant on a major programme will depend on factors well outside any one firm’s control: financing structures, procurement rules, and the pace at which Zambia’s construction sector opens up to smaller, citizen owned practices. For now, the firm’s own numbers, more than 127 kilometres of roads, a 52 metre bridge, five projects across four clients in under three years, are the clearest evidence of what a young Zambian engineering firm can build inside the joint venture model as it currently exists.
Related reading: The Economics of Exclusion: How Financing Asymmetry Is Squeezing Zambian Contractors Out of Their Own Market and Ethics as Infrastructure: The Economic Case for Integrity in Zambia’s Engineering Sector, both by Eng. Willings Sichalwe.
WARNING! All rights reserved. This material and all other digital content on this website may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior express permission of The Zambian Economist. Where permission is granted, the content must be clearly credited to “The Zambian Economist,” with “www.zambianeconomist.com” prominently displayed.
WhatsApp: +260775574228 | Email: info@zambianeconomist.com
© 2026 The Zambian Economist.
