Royal Hotel, Durban, 8 November 1999
Dear Editors,
Colleagues and Friends.
I would like to thank you all very warmly for attending this Editor Forum this morning. This interaction is essential as it enables me to outline to you my thinking around my portfolio and it also enables us to build solid foundations and partnerships for the mutual benefit of all our clients. I’m deliberately saying clients because the one thing which remains common between us is our target market, The public.
Since I took over in June as Minister of Transport, you should all know from the very beginning that my Ministry and Department is absolutely committed to the goals of delivery which our President and this government have defined for the coming years. Our mandate is to accelerate the delivery of a better life for all South Africans, particularly the poorest of the poor, and to build a truly united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society which will offer hope, opportunity and meaningful economic choic es to its citizens, in an environment of improving safety and security for all.
In the transport context, this means making sure that areas like the taxi violence and the outrageous road safety record are addressed and that government’s institutional and regulatory actions mesh together the needs and demands of transport users with th e best skills and capacities available in government and the business sector. Our goal is to create rational and responsive transport systems to enhance South Africa’s deliver mobility and opportunity to all of our people - and here again let me emphasise that this means making a real, tangible difference to the lives of those who have been most disadvantaged in our country: our rural communities, women, children, the old and the ill, and those with additional special needs of one kind or another.
I intend not to give a lecture because I want to keep this interaction as informal as possible. Allow me to give you some very clear ideas on what my major priorities and immediate areas of focus as Minister are. I will begin with my priorities in the area of road safety, the taxi processes and law enforcement.
Arrive Alive
South Africa has one of the worst road traffic accident records in the world. The 1997 statistics indicate that approximately 10,000 people were killed and close to 50,000 were seriously injured (of whom some 40 percent were pedestrians), at the cost of R1 2.8 billion to the economy. In 1997, the Arrive Alive Road Safety Campaign was launched as a first step towards the development of a systematic nationwide strategy to combat the carnage on our roads. Arrive Alive was planned and introduced with the full su pport and cooperation of the Provincial Ministers for Transport and with intensive local government participation at an operational level.
This project has now entered its fourth phase. Once again we will be targeting the major offences leading to accidents: driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs; speed; driver and vehicle fitness; overloading; seatbelts and pedestrian safety.
The Arrive Alive campaign, despite the strength of its impact on the public imagination and its continuing success in steadily bringing down the road death toll, has not been without its problems. Scarce resources continue to be a problem for a campaign of this scope and complexity - both financial and in terms of the availability of adequately skilled and trained personnel at all levels of management and enforcement. In this regard, we gratefully acknowledge the continuing financial support of the Road Acc ident Fund and of the businesses which have helped fund various key communication activities and become involved in the campaign.
It is for this reason that as we enter and prepare for a very crucial period, the festive season leading to the new millennium, we should do so in partnership for the benefit of all our clients. I wish to call upon you to join me and my Department to make a difference during this period. Your contribution as organised and established media cannot be overemphasised. I’m coming to you today requesting you to give extensive coverage on your newspapers, radio and television programmes to this campaign. My Depar tment will be spending a substantial amount of money onto different publicity material and the production of advertisements. This is not enough. We need editorial, feature articles and documentaries generated by your journalists in conjunction with ourselv es to inform and empower readers, listeners and viewers alike on road safety matters in general. I will be announcing a more detailed plan on 22 November here in Kwazulu-Natal on what we have planned for the festive season. I hope out of that, you will be able to pick-up on themes you could cover for public consumption. I’m are confident that many of the management and enforcement coordination problems we have experienced will be resolved through the implementation of Administrative and Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) and the establishment of the Road Traffic Management Corporation(RTMC) which I will speak about later.
Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC)
The RTMC Act was approved by Parliament and printed in the Government Gazette in April this year, to institutionalise cooperative Governance by pooling the powers and resources of the national and provincial (and to a limited extent the local) levels of go vernment.
The cooperative governance system envisaged by the Act depends on the willingness of local, provincial and national government structures to pool their resources. The effectiveness with which these resources are shared will be pivotal to the success of the RTMC. It will be facilitated through the leadership provided by a Shareholders Committee consisting of the Minister of Transport, the MECs responsible for transport in each of the nine provinces and two members of SALGA.
To this end, we will be convening the first Shareholders Committee Meeting before the end of this year. This will see the appointment of an Acting CEO, who will be charged with the responsibility of putting together a Business Plan which will see the RTMC moving. The Ministers Committee (MINCOM) agreed last week that this process should continue to ensure that the management of road traffic is streamlined and improved. Let me share with you some of the key challenges facing the RTMC, changing the behaviour of road users;
intensifying our efforts towards reducing the unacceptably high death toll on our roads, with its associated high cost to the economy and lifelong trauma for road crash victims;
Now let me turn my attention to the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO)
The current efficiency of the adjudication system for traffic offences leaves much to be desired. In general only about 25 percent of traffic fines are paid, with collection rates in some metropolitan areas as low as 9 percent. To this end therefore, the d epartment sought and obtained Parliamentary approval of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Act in September last year.
The purpose of the Act is to:
The overall strategy and implementation options for the AARTO system will also be discussed at the next MINCOM meeting. Particular attention will need to be paid to the issue of identifying the funding that will be required to kick-start AARTO, since the a djudication of road traffic offences is a new responsibility for the Department of Transport, for which it has not in the past had to make dedicated budgetary provision. I’m consulting Cabinet to discuss funding options available and perhaps an appropriati on of some additional funds.
Law Enforcement Matters and Violence
The upsurge in corruption with respect to motor vehicles is of great concern to this department and to government as a whole. Some of the areas where corruption is prevalent are motor vehicle registration and licencing, driver licencing and the general law enforcement environment. Road transport-related violence is also of major concern to the department.
The department is committed to the eradication of weak law enforcement and violence. To this end, the department is already starting work through its key consultative mechanism with provinces (MINCOM) on putting together a new structure and set of function al capacities that will create the required change. The responsibilities of this functional capacity will be executed through provincial and local government structures and will be exercised in conjunction with national policing authorities and other stake holders involved in the national crime prevention effort. In the long run, it is envisaged that the management and control of this effort will be located in the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
Taxi Process
Government is grateful for the coverage and interest in the taxi industry by the media, however, I feel that there are some important misunderstandings. I hope that my input today will put some of these issues into perspective.
You will recall that we have been in a process with the taxi industry for 5 years. When we started in 1994, we were faced with an industry which had been completely deregulated by the pre-1994 government. This meant that the industry consisted of anybody w ho could lay their hands on a vehicle and muster their way onto a route. It also meant that there were no measures in place to regulate and control taxi operations. Any process therefore had to find a way to bring existing organizations and members of the industry into a representative structure, and as government we had to accept that existing operations be recognized as part of the public transport industry, since 65% of our commuters are transported by the taxi industry, which has been and still is unsub sidized.
The National Taxi Task Team was formed, which laid the basis for a partnership between government and the taxi industry. The final recommendations of the NTTT were agreed to by both the industry and government and approved by cabinet in 1998. This partners hip rests on an understanding in which both government and the taxi industry have obligations around three fundamental issues:
Firstly, legalization. We got agreement on a legalization process which was implemented by provinces, in which the rules and procedures for legalization of operators were laid down. This legalization process was designed to provide a basis for regulation a nd control of the existing industry in a manner in which the industry itself would benefit. For various reasons, not all operators who existed at the time of the Special Legalization process registered, and many were turned down. We are now in the process of ensuring that the backlog of applications for registration is cleared, that permits and permit conversions from radius to route based is completed, and that a national database is established in conjunction with the provinces. We are also establishing a short term window for legalization, in terms of which those who are not as yet registered, and those whose registrations were turned down, have an opportunity to re-apply and appeal. This intervention is the "Be Legal Campaign" which will be implemented o ver the next 6 months by national and provincial governments jointly. This will enable government a more sound basis to regulate the industry and control operations on routes and ranks. Future registrations and permitting will be governed by the provisions contained in the National Land Transport Transition Bill which will be tabled in the first session of 2000.
Secondly, the formalization process. Formalization has involved primarily the establishment of interim formal structures within the taxi industry with which government and other stakeholders can interact. The South African Taxi Council was formed by both M other bodies and Provincial taxi industry representatives in September 1998.
A 51 member Management Council was established at national level, and provincial councils were established in conjunction with oversight from MEC’s. This interim leadership was mandated to carry forward the recommendations of the NTTT at national and provi ncial levels. Amongst these, was the requirement that government formally recognize these structures, and that SATACO interim leadership ensure the drafting of a final constitution which would guide democratic elections of councils from local to the nation al council level. The MOU was thus signed in May 1999. SATACO is now in the process of undertaking consultation through provincial councils with MEC’s by way of provincial summits during the course of November and the roll-out of a national road show from February 2000. The summit and road shows are intended to report back on progress made, consult with members and to consolidate the democratization and legalization processes.
Third, the recognition of the taxi industry as the largest black owned small business industry and its role in the public transport sector without subsidy, resulted in an acceptance by government of the need for economic assistance to the industry. This as sistance is targeted at benefitting the individual operator by way of discounts of services and products to the industry through benefits of scale, and the formalization of the industry into the mainstream economy as an empowerment vehicle. To this end, th e establishment of government assisted provincial cooperatives was undertaken. The benefits of membership by operators in cooperatives is also an incentive to become legal and comply with the regulatory measures adopted in the NTTT. Cooperatives are the me chanism for ownership and distribution of services and products to the industry. 36 fuel licenses were awarded for distribution amongst the cooperatives. To date 6 provinces have established cooperatives, whilst the remaining three are presently in the pro cess of doing so. These cooperatives are also to be the delivery mechanism for the recapitalization program.
The second component of economic assistance was government’s role to facilitate the recapitalization of the present taxi fleet. The average age of the fleet is 10 years within a vehicle life span of 11 years. Given the significance of the industry in publi c transport, it has become a critical problem as regards the safety of our commuters. The present downward spiral of service quality is simply unsustainable and unacceptable from a safety and efficiency point of view. The recapitalization program is a join t effort between Transport, Trade and Industry, Minerals and Energy, Finance and the SATACO. It is aimed at the individual operator, and is designed to ensure access to affordable, purpose-built public transport vehicles which will be sourced through the p resent tender process . Government has committed a significant scrapping allowance on the price of the new vehicles, provided that the operator has a legal permit and is registered for tax, and provided that the existing vehicle attached to the permit is p hysically scrapped.
The recapitalization program therefore enables us to achieve many of our objectives with the taxi industry in that:
In conclusion, we are now at a point in the taxi process at which the various threads of legalization, formalization and economic assistance enable us to tie the process down into implementation. It is important to recognize that whilst we complete the imp lementation of these processes over the next 12 months, problems on the ground will continue to exist. We have however made significant progress in being able to deal with these problems more effectively. Provinces have put in place legal measures which en able government to act decisively and effectively against perpetrators of violence, and the President himself has deployed specialized enforcement capacity to act with immediate effect. The SATACO and its provincial structures will be undertaking their ele ction process within the next 6 months, after which a democratically elected leadership will be in place, guided by a constitution which compels the industry to ensure its membership is compliant with the rules and procedures agreed to.
We are confident that through the partnership established between government and the taxi industry, and the introduction of a national framework in the form of the National Land Transport Transition Bill, we will be able to realize greater stability in the industry, and ultimately a safer more efficient public transport system, in which the South African public transport customer’s needs are met.
HIV/AIDS
Transport and the HIV/AIDS epidemic have a complex relationship which requires our serious and urgent attention. Transport is often labelled as the "vector" of the epidemic, whether it is through people who move through transport, or transport workers, man y of whose lifestyles, by the very nature of the industry, increases their risk of infection. In line with the Partnership Against AIDS, the Ministry of Transport initiated a campaign to tackle this issue head-on: both internally - within the NDOT and its stakeholders - and externally - within all the other key sectors of the Transport industry. The short term aim is to make a dramatic impact at the educational and awareness levels, while at the same time implanting coordinated policies and structures which empower the industry both to combat the spread and manage the human consequences of the disease as effectively as possible in the medium to long term.
Starting in the road freight sector under the banner of "Trucking against AIDS", my Department has facilitated a partnership between government, employers and labour to tackle the issue in that industry. What has emerged is an energetic partnership which i s taking the message to trucking companies and truckers around the entire country.
Building on this model, my department has recently begun to initiate similar processes in the ports and shipping, rail and aviation sectors. In all sectors we have sought to locate these projects within the structures representing both employers and employ ees, so as to ensure the sustainability of the campaigns.
Y2K PROJECT
Y2K compliance for the transport industry within the country is coordinated and led by the Department of Transport. Local government services and Eskom’s power supply are obvious areas in which failure to achieve Y2K readiness could have a devastating impa ct not only on the delivery of essential services but also on the smooth flow of transport. The Department is currently being updated on progress by these institutions through the National Y2K Decision Support Centre, which is assigned by government to mon itor and co-ordinate the country’s Y2K strategy.
The Department is also involved in the SADC Y2K programme, and is closely monitoring member states’ progress on the issue. Their Y2K readiness is of the essence in respect to regional transport services, whether by road, rail, air or sea.
Meanwhile, progress within South Africa has been good, with most sectors of the transport industry already geared to meet the target of Y2K compliance and contingency measures being put in place.
Mike Mabasa
Manager: Media Liaison and Corporate Communications
MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT