Address at the South African Transport Conference by Mr Jeff Radebe (MP), Minister of Transport, Tshwane

Can I say first of all what a great pleasure it is to be here this morning! And congratulations to Professor Visser and the team for bringing together so many expert speakers and panellists, and of course, an experienced and knowledgeable audience which I've always found daunting to address especially being only five years in the Transport Sector.

As a matter of fact we have people here from many different areas with different specialties and interests which is exactly why government will continue to listen to you. As far as we are concerned, you are the people who plan and deliver transport, the people who maintain our infrastructure and basically play a role in building an integrated, sustainable, effective transport system that supports a growing South Africa's economy.

It has clearly been a great privilege for me to interact with yourselves during the current tenure of government. And taking into account the theme of the Conference, which is "Research and Progress on Transport"; perhaps it is just as important to look back on some of the commitments and progress we have made over the past five years.

Ladies and gentlemen, you will recall that in my 2004 speech to this conference, I highlighted the fact that our renovation and upgrading of our South African transport system is constrained by inadequate historical investment in infrastructure, as well as by the spatial legacies of apartheid planning and under-development, including a shortage of sufficient skills within government and the private sector that would allow the innovation within our country's transport sector to be more effective in its application. Alongside these major constraints, however, I emphasised that a number of opportunities existed including a proud history of engineering and innovation that requires major support from government and the private sector.

Let me also remind you that in 2005 I urged this Conference to consider the implications of the Ministers of Transport summit in Addis Ababa which addressed the development and implementation of a plan of action to secure the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015. I also emphasised that the programme of action that emerged from the Minister's meeting integrated and built on a number of transport development programmes being carried out by countries, regional and continental blocs, including New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Central to this, was the importance of improving, upgrading and expanding transport infrastructure and services through eradication of physical and non-physical barriers along transport corridors.

In 2006, I assured this Conference of our determination to host a highly successful 2010 Soccer World Cup precisely because South Africans understood that success is borne of collective effort, commitment, energy and enthusiasm. In 2007, I then emphasized that our task of policy and strategy formulation was complete, but needed to fast-track the implementation programme and address challenges that have hampered the implementation of some of our policies.

I therefore believe it is important to look back and take stock of what we've achieved and the progress we've made over the past four years to address the matters raised over the years. This is even more crucial as we approach the end of the current tenure of government. I am not going to attempt an overview of government's policies on each and every issue I've highlighted but will give you a sense of how far government has gone in transforming our transport system.

Ladies and gentlemen, our primary success, I would suggest, has been the completion of the first two phases of the National Transport Master Plan which will be a firm foundation for effective and efficient transport planning and implementation across the spheres of government. The Master Plan is a blueprint for infrastructure investment for South Africa over the coming 45 years. We are convinced that the Master Plan will address the fragmentation of authority and responsibility for transport functions. We have completed the first two of the four planned phases of the Master-Plan.

The first Phase is mainly the Inventory or data collection which was completed in August 2007. The second Phase, the analysis, was completed in April 2008. Both these phases were concluded with Roundtable Workshops involving key national and provincial stakeholders, operators and the consulting consortium members.

The third phase will involve the application of the demand model to predict intermediate and design year demand for freight and passenger services. This information will in turn be compared with the capacity of the road and rail networks, airports and ports to identify where capacity will need to be enhanced. The final phase will involve the development of an Action Agenda that will include recommendations on the institutional and policy changes necessary to achieve the implementation of the Master Plan Action Agenda. The final phase will also include cost estimates for the implementation of an action agenda for the Master Plan. We are of the firm view that once complete, the Master Plan will set South Africa's transport on new path into the future.

This will also be reinforced by our policy framework which continues to allow for a steady increase in transport infrastructure funding. We are already seeing the benefits through increased funding for transport related infrastructure which is now standing at R160 billion. This has given us an opportunity to establish an integrated transport system through the development of new infrastructure, upgrading and realigning existing infrastructure, and ensuring its maintenance through proper finance mechanisms. This is evident with a great deal of activity in our rail and road sectors, including new investment for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Our road network is benefiting from a Government investment of R70 billion in the three year funding period, investment that will support our economy. Our priority at every level is to make the most out of existing capacity and to make sure environmental considerations are at the forefront of any road development. We have also allocated R13.6 billion for the public transport infrastructure for 2010 Soccer World Cup, and all our major 2010 projects have started in all host cities with some already completed. The airports upgrading is also receiving our outmost importance with R21 billion allocation from the balance sheet of our Airports Company (ACSA) for the National Airports Development Plan. Over the years our ports and harbours have also received some serious revamp. Cabinet has also recently approved the development of the Moloto Rail Corridor which is an important milestone in moving our people.

The vision behind the infrastructure initiatives is a need for a seamless logistics system. A system that is indeed characterised by an efficient flow of freight and cargo that promotes our economy's global competitiveness. The approval by Cabinet of our National Freight Logistics Strategy also created a systematic framework within which to pursue investment in our freight rail environment.

Enhancing our freight logistics system seeks to ensure that transport as a key input sector facilitate greater economic activity, employment creation and access to economic opportunities. As a result, we have made it our business to address issues of inefficiencies and costs of our freight logistics system. We have particularly identified key challenges within the system such as the inappropriate institutional structure of the freight sector as well as the regulatory frameworks.

We have also concluded that for the reform of the freight sector it was important to introduce Economic, Safety, Environmental and Security Regulation. We believe that this will change the current institutional structure of the freight industry. To this end, the establishment of the Rail Economic Regulator has already begun.

Ladies and gentlemen, this brings me to an important issue of skills development within the Transport Sector. It is a well known fact that the SA Transport Sector employs 584 000 people in the formal and informal sector, which represents 4.3% of the active population. However, a lot needs to be done to respond to the challenges of scarce and critical skills needed to support the sector especially for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. As government we have assumed the responsibility of capacity enhancement and improving the human resource pool to achieve our vision. In particular government is prioritising skills required for the 2010 action plan. We have also set dedicated and agreeable skills development targets especially for youth, women and all previously disadvantaged people at national, provincial and municipal levels, as well as across all transport entities and these are clearly aligned to Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA). We are also negotiating with the Department of Labour to support the transport mandate by integrating 2010 within the Transport Education Training Authority (TETA) service level agreement. We are confident that all these efforts will help us address the critical issues of skills development within our sector.

Delegates, as you are well aware, the transport portfolio spreads responsibilities and allocates authority to all three spheres of government in South Africa. At one level, this dispersion of responsibilities has led to some confusion over which sphere should take the lead in certain instances, and, probably more critical, where the buck stops. To this end, we continue to be seized with the legislative process of transforming the land transport system which begun with the National Land Transport Transition Act, 2000 (NLTTA). Our National Land Transport Bill is being finalised that will replace the NLTTA and will promote the integration of public transport systems and modes, for example by establishing Integrated Rapid Public Transport Networks (IRPTNs), firstly in the 12 larger cities and later in some other cities and rural districts. Once passed, the National Land Transport Act will address service delivery gaps by streamlining and rationalising institutional structures and implementation procedures. It will also address the challenges of fragmentation of functions across the spheres of government and agencies. And pave the way for more uniform laws, standards and procedures to facilitate implementation.

Another area of major achievement is the public transport. We continue to be driven by a vision of an effective, efficient, safe, reliable and co-ordinated public transport system that covers urban and rural areas. Our biggest achievement was the approval of the public transport strategy and plan by Cabinet in 2006. The revamp of our public transport system is now guided by this very important document. The main thrust of our strategy is to integrate our public transport system by establishing the public transport networks in order to optimise the service.

We have specifically embarked on various initiatives to improve the public transport service and we have made significant progress in this regard. The first initiative has been the taxi recapitalisation process. Since the start of the scrapping process we have scrapped more than 14 000 old taxi vehicles and paid out more than R700 million in scrapping allowances. We also continue to process application for operating licenses which is crucial for the regulation of the taxi industry.

We have also eradicated the fragmentation of the institutional framework that governs South African Rail Commuter Corporation (SARCC), Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl through the consolidation of these three services to provide a streamlined all inclusive rail commuter and long distance passenger service. Last year we were able to consolidate metrorail into SARCC, and early this year Shosholoza Meyl was also consolidated with SARCC. Over and above this process, government has allocated R18 billion for the improvement of rail service and the refurbishment of the rolling stock and the rail infrastructure.

The subsidy in the public transport system has also been the area of our focus especially with the soaring fuel costs. Over the years it has become quite clear that there are many instances where the application of some subsidies in the bus and rail sectors have not had the results we intended. We have had to develop a module tender document especially to deal with the issues of bus contracts in order to get our money's worth. We are also investigating various options of expanding the bus subsidy system to include the taxi industry. By so doing, we believe that the public transport will be completely transformed.

As transport we continue to play our role within the global and regional context. We have entered into a number of country to country agreements that combine the resources of various African countries to help build infrastructure across the region and the Continent as a whole. These responsibilities extend into infrastructure investments such as corridor development, road and rail improvement, the implementation of the Yamoussoukro decision to open the skies and improve connectivity. We are also playing an active role in dismantling physical and non-physical transport barriers to shorten journey times, customs clearance and border delays but also to ensure compliance with and adherence to all international conventions on safety, security and trade facilitation.

Ladies and gentlemen, it must be emphasised that research continues to be a spine of our work, for instance the Master plan cannot be a success without a research. However, it must be mentioned that funding does seem to be a measure constrain and we certainly cannot afford such a trend. As government, we are committed to ensuring that research institutions play their meaningful role in the development and integration of our transport system and we must together work on finding solutions to raise funds for research institutions.

In conclusion, I have merely outlined a number of areas that have emerged over the years that we have worked so harmoniously together. The list is certainly not exhaustive. But it is only by learning from the experts who are delivering better transport, and listening to the experiences of those who are knowledgeable about this subject that we will be able to achieve an efficient, integrated, sustainable, safe transport system that South Africa deserves. I think it's a goal worth aiming for and I hope that your discussions during the conference will help us all to achieve all the goals that we set for ourselves.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Transport
7 July 2008