Cape Town, Tuesday 14 December
Thank you for inviting me to address your gathering here this evening. We are already in the midst of our Millennium holiday season Arrive Alive campaign, so I greatly appreciate not just the opportunity to enlist your support for our campaign activities, but also the chance you have given me to stand back a moment and share some reflections with you on where we in transport collectively find ourselves at this moment in our history.
I have just come back from a helicopter visit to a number of Arrive Alive roadblocks here in the Western Cape, from Blaauwberg to Somerset West to Hermanus and back to the Grand Parade Bus and Taxi Rank here in Cape Town.
I can just say that there is overwhelming public support for the campaign and for the measures we are taking.
I am also very pleased to have been able once again to see at first hand the committed and well-coordinated actions of our traffic police as they work - many of them round the clock - to implement our festive season enforcement programme. If you find yourselves pulled up at roadblocks over this summer holiday period - and I doubt that anyone here today is going to escape this experience - I know you will be patient, because you understand the vital necessity of these actions.
As responsible professionals, I sincerely trust that you will have nothing to worry about at these roadblocks, since you will not have been drinking before driving. But I equally express the hope that passing through speed check points will be no problem for you either, because you are at all times obeying the speed limit.
It's strange how many otherwise responsible people, who would not dream of drinking and driving, still haven't got round to taking the issue of speeding as seriously as it deserves. As engineers, you will be fully aware of the critical statistic that speed is either the key factor or an important contributory factor in more than 70% of crashes on South Africa's roads. And here's another small statistic that should really focus our minds: in 1998, we killed 637 children aged between 0 and 12 years old on our roads. We seriously injured a further 6 371. I don't have to remind you that if last year these were "other people's" children, this year they could be yours or mine.
So as we talk together here - and before I address some of the specific topics your letter of invitation suggested that I might want to touch on - let me first offer a few reflections on wider matters of responsibility and change - and shared collective responsibility for change - in our society.
As we face the new millennium, we know that together we face huge ongoing challenges. Just to mention some of the more obvious ones : challenges of social and institutional restructuring, growing our economy, competing effectively in a tough global environment, redistributing wealth and opportunity, combatting crime and developing an all-round culture of responsible law compliance in South Africa. The battle on all these fronts will be long and hard. And we certainly shouldn't fool ourselves about the depth of the traumas, the psychological diseases and the general culture of lawlessness that we carry over from our past. These are disorders that we must do everything in our power to eradicate as we strive to build a future of peace, security and prosperity for our children.
Equally, though, it's just as important to recognise what we have achieved so far, and not indulge in that very South African vice of beating ourselves up as soon as anything goes wrong, or if our first attempts to overcome a problem don't meet with the immediate success we are looking for. We know that transformation is a complex process, and that building a new, healthier society takes many years. All the more reason why we should make a point of taking stock from time to time, reminding ourselves of how far we have come - so that we can build on our achievements with confidence and clear-headedness.
Compare where we were in 1993/94 with where we are now. Over the first five years of democratic government we have together succeeded in defusing the possibility of civil war and stabilising our society. We have created a general climate of human rights and constitutionality which, if it is still fragile and unequally distributed amongst all our people, nevertheless lays the foundations for future peace and prosperity.
Through hard compromises we have made significant progress in the difficult task of reconciliation and nation building. We have ensured continuity of government and economic stability, and have laid firm foundations for a new cycle of growth even as we have been continuously grappling with major problems of institutional restructuring, capacity building, service provision and redistribution. If we have come this far in 5 short years, why should we think that any future problems should be beyond solution?
You have asked me to come here today and address a range of issues. These include roads infrastructure - a matter dear to the engineer's heart - but also, I'm very pleased to note, wider issues of road safety, traffic management and long term planning, including how to properly balance the various components of our transport system.
I started out with the problem of the carnage on our roads, so let me say a few more words about our approach to the solution of this problem at the system level. First, the general context. The problem of road deaths and injuries is one which all developed and developing societies face. It is part of the price we pay as citizens for a form of mobility based on motor vehicles. On the one hand, it has taken the task of getting fast from A to B, which - for every century prior to the one we are about to leave, was a major undertaking - and turned it into something we take for granted. On the other hand, we are increasingly paying the price for this convenience in terms of urban congestion and environmental pollution.
On top of this, we carry forward a set of additional problems peculiar to our own history as South Africans. Put very simply, the rich - historically mainly those who were white - reaped the major convenience benefits of the private motor vehicle operating on a sophisticated national road network. The poor - overwhelmingly those who were black and systematically disadvantaged on the basis of their skin colour - were either shut out from this system entirely or made captive to over-stretched public passenger transport modes over whose services, timetables, comfort, appropriateness and safety regulation they had no say whatsoever.
Still, to this very day, as we look at the fatality statistics for the millennium summer holiday season, we see that the majority of the people dying on our roads are passengers in public transport vehicles or pedestrians. In South Africa, apartheid continues to live while death itself remains discriminatory.
It's important to say these things, so that in dealing with the problems of the present we are able to pick out the major distortions inherited from the past that are still alive and active in the present. Time is not necessarily on our side. If, as an integral part of our strategic planning processes, we do not attend to these historical hangovers as a matter of urgency we put at risk all our attempts to secure the long term social stability which is the central underpinning element of the planning process.
My theme today is twofold: on the one hand, law enforcement and the systems development and capacity building required to make it work; on the other hand, long term partnership - between government, business, labour, the professions and our communities - to achieve a sustainable pattern of development and security based on social inclusiveness.
I want to make it very clear today that, amongst the many challenges I see in the field of transport, law enforcement is my top priority.
I take this opportunity to make it known that planning work is already under way for a major conference on road traffic safety and management issues, to be held in May or June 2000 under the auspices of the Road Traffic Safety Board, which I reconvened last week in Pretoria. The intention of this conference is to take stock of where we have got to. We need to carefully and critically analyse all the work that has been done over the last five years, from the Road Traffic Quality and Safety Symposium of June 1996, to the Road Traffic Management Strategy and its interim programme, Arrive Alive, to the implementation of AARTO and the Road Traffic Management Corporation. Then we must use the conference as a springboard for the development of a new set of strategic perspectives which will take us forward to the year 2020 and beyond.
This conference will flesh out and complement the general strategic framework for transport developed in Moving South Africa:The Action Agenda. It will bring together the widest possible range of government, industry and professional stakeholders to address these problems collectively. With the proviso that the vision of inclusive development should be the driving force behind everything we do, the conference agenda will be an open one, allowing for maximum diversity and creativity of input. We already have a firm commitment to participate from some of the major road traffic planners and planning institutions in Sweden, Britain, the Netherlands and Australia. I invite you today, as engineering professionals and members of the IRTE, to join us in this conference and become an integral part of the strategy development and action processes that it will undoubtedly initiate.
In the meantime, we look forward to the further deepening of the Arrive Alive process through the implementation next year of the AARTO Infringement Agency and the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
My Department is now in the last stages of finalising the funding mechanisms for the Infringement Agency, and preparations are well advanced for its envisaged launch on 1st April 2000. It is worth reminding ourselves what the major effects of the new Agency will be:
The implementation of the points demerit system, together with completion of the roll- out of the credit card format licence (in about three years time), will have the effect of steadily taking both reckless and illegal or fraudulent drivers off South Africa's roads. In more general terms, it is envisaged that the incremental establishment of the AARTO system will increasingly guarantee quick, sure and effective follow-through from roadside enforcement actions to penalty payments and disqualifications. In broader terms, we think that this will soon begin to make a significant contribution to stamping out the culture of impunity which currently exists amongst many road users, replacing it with a positive and responsible culture of law compliance.
The establishment of the Road Traffic Management Corporation is specifically intended to re-define and strengthen the structures and mechanisms for co-operation between the national, provincial and local spheres of government in support of their respective responsibilities for road traffic strategic planning, regulation, facilitation and enforcement.
It will also create conditions which will allow the private sector to take up opportunities in the provision of road traffic services in areas where public sector capacity requires reinforcement and business is capable of bringing in the necessary expertise within a context of effective regulation.
The RTMC will in effect create a structure in which a pooling of powers and resources nationwide can take place under a single management umbrella, and will bring all traffic management and quality assurance functions under one roof. It will be overseen by a shareholders committee comprising myself, as the National Minister of Transport, the nine provincial MECs and two representatives of SALGA. It will be headed by a CEO who will be responsible for its 10 key functional areas: road traffic law enforcement; training of traffic personnel; vehicle registration and licensing; vehicle roadworthiness testing; testing and licensing of drivers; road traffic information systems; accident investigation and recording; public communication and education; infrastructure safety audits; and adjudication of road traffic offences. The Corporation will be self-financing through a set of flexible funding mechanisms comprising a percentage of the transaction fees earned through the provision of road traffic services, fines and penalties for contracted law enforcement, and interest on invested cash balances.
It will enable the focussed and targeted enforcement efforts begun by Arrive Alive to be carried forward within an incomparably more structured and better-resourced environment, and I expect it to bring dramatic improvements to the effectiveness of existing traffic management and control resources.
In the meantime, we are not neglecting the task of paying serious ongoing attention to urgent regulatory and safety matters. Some of these were brought to national attention as a result of the spate of bus and coach crashes which took place on our roads a few months ago. Other hard-hitting changes to traffic safety regulations have already been implemented within the framework of the RTQS or are in the pipeline for implementation next year.
As you know, it is already obligatory for drivers of various categories of goods vehicles, breakdown vehicles, buses, minibuses and other vehicles used for conveying people for reward to obtain Professional Driving Permits; and that owners of such vehicles must obtain roadworthiness certificates at least 6 months before any application for a licence renewal is made. These provisions will be followed up, as soon as we can make the necessary amendments to the National Road Traffic Act, by the introduction of the operator card system, which will impose a stringent set of control functions on all operators of public transport vehicles, and will empower traffic authorities to prohibit the issue of such cards in the event of transgression.
You will also no doubt have seen, in the context of recent media reports, that we are already vigorously enforcing the speed limit reduction from 120 to 100 k/hr for all buses, coaches and minibus taxis - and that we have now achieved active consent to this reduction from all the affected sectors, including minibus taxi drivers. We are currently looking closely at further regulatory changes: to ensure compulsory wearing of seatbelts in buses and coaches; to shorten the intervals between roadworthiness tests for public passenger transport vehicles and between renewal tests for the Professional Driver's Permit; to tighten up regulations governing professional drivers' working hours and conditions; and to ensure their effective enforcement through compulsory installation and monitoring of tachographs and/or onboard computers in all heavy freight vehicles and buses/coaches.
Let me now say a word or two about my thoughts on the policing of all these institutional and regulatory changes, by way of response to your request to for some insight into future perspectives on the rationalisation of the functions of traffic police and SAPS officers.
In most countries in the world the function of traffic policing is performed by the police department or a traffic section attached to the police. In South Africa however, as you know, the traffic policing function is the prime responsibility of a Provincial or Local traffic authority, while the responsibility for accident recording, investigation and reconstruction lies with the SAPS.
The ideal position might well be to place crime prevention, traffic law enforcement and other policing functions under the auspices of a single Department, but this is not easily done in terms of the South African Constitutional dispensation.
The issue of the optimal location of responsibility for traffic control and policing was first dealt with early in 1995 by a Joint Task Group (JTG) whose main recommendation was that a consultative meeting between the Ministers of Transport, Safety and Security and Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development should be held to determine the long term future of traffic policing.
Recognising the specialised nature of road traffic control as a transport function, the Ministers decided at a joint meeting held on 25 July 1996 that Traffic Departments should not merge with the South African Police, but should gradually take over the traffic control functions of the SAPS - especially those of accident recording, investigating and reconstruction.
I believe that the meeting of Ministers took the correct approach in deciding that traffic control should remain a function managed in terms of traffic legislation and policy. I am pleased to inform you that we have already moved to a position where areas of common interest with regard to legislation, policy and operations are jointly dealt with on national, provincial and local levels by formal structures which bring together representatives of my Department, the Departments of Safety and Security and Justice, traffic authorities other important stakeholders.
Accident recording by traffic authorities has in fact already commenced, though it has not yet been clearly established when the takeover process will be completed nationally. However, various interesting new steps are being taken as part of the overall process. For example, the Durban Metro Police Service has recently been empowered in terms of the South African Police Amendment Act to operate as a Municipal police force with the same full set of powers as members of the SAPS.
The general point, I think, is this: we need to continuously provide sufficient traffic security to all road users, build capacity into the delivery of community-based traffic control services in disadvantaged communities and improve the level of cooperation between traffic authorities and the public. Also, as we to improve traffic management systems and build up the professionalism of traffic control personnel, we need to pay continuous attention to the other side of the coin: putting significant communication resources into promoting a spirit of voluntary compliance amongst road users - what I would call "winning the cultural battle". I am of the firm view that the most effective instruments for achieving these ends will be dedicated Traffic Authorities working in close conjunction with the RTMC.
While we are still on the general subject of regulation and control, which has so often been a big issue in relation to the minibus taxi industry, it gives me great pleasure to change tack slightly and instead act as the bearer of some exciting news in relation to the economic future of this industry, which daily carries some 70% of our people to and from work.
As you may have seen in the press, my Department is currently engaged in a large scale recapitalisation project which is aimed at achieving a major economic turnaround for the industry. It is a logical development out of the process of regulation, legalisation, formalisation and building of democratic institutional unity which was initiated through the National Taxi Task Team (NTTT).
While very significant work has been completed on stabilising, unifying and restructuring the minibus taxi industry, its vehicles are generally very close to the end of their useful economic life. It was for this reason that Moving South Africa identified the need to recapitalise the industry as an important policy priority. The essence of the project is to replace, over a 4-year period, the current ageing and increasingly dangerous fleet of approximately 126 000 taxis with new, locally-assembled 18 and 35 seater vehicles specifically designed to the high quality safety standards required for public passenger transport.
This innovative scheme - developed by a task team made up of representatives from the Departments of Transport, Trade and Industry, Minerals and Energy and Finance - will be facilitated via a permit swap system involving the replacement of old vehicles by newly manufactured ones. A scrapping allowance will be available to owners of existing vehicles to offset the price of the new vehicles. The scheme has built-in regulatory levers in the form of compulsory registration of new vehicles onto a national permits database and forced maintenance contracts linked to the residual (or in other words the scrapping value) of the vehicle at the end of its effective life.
A number of companies, both local and international, submitted expressions of interest in bidding for the construction of these new vehicles. The vehicle specifications required were made available to the bidders in September, regulatory documents in October and firm proposals were submitted by the bidders last month.
In January next year, negotiations will take place with the short-listed manufacturers around the submission of their best and final offers, in tandem with a symposium at which they will be invited to display the vehicle prototypes on which they intended basing the final vehicle types offered.
March 2000 will see the completion of the Project Team's Final Report and Recommendations. The winners of the contract will be announced on 1 April 2000 and delivery of the first vehicles is expected to begin from 1 October 2000.
In moving towards a conclusion, let me now turn back again to some of the wider transport issues you were interested in hearing some thoughts about, particularly at the level of strategic planning.
One of the major weaknesses I have detected in the MSA Action Agenda, challenging though it is in most of the areas that it addresses, is that it is relatively silent on the major issue of integrated and complementary road and rail systems development. You will note that I say road and rail, not road versus rail. It is extremely important, as we seek ways of realising the vision of the White Paper and Moving South Africa, that we do not counterpose one system against another.
We must not allow the perspectives of sectoral lobbyists to dominate how we think about the delivery of rational, integrated, sustainable, cost-effective and customer- facing public passenger transport and freight systems. We need to think holistically and unselfishly if we are to meet our agreed goals of providing genuine access, mobility and service to all our people, growing the key export sectors of the economy, supporting job creation and contributing to the redistribution of skills, training and entrepreneurial opportunity across our society.
In this context, I want to let you know today that Cabinet has thrown its full weight behind such an approach to the development of our road and rail systems, and that a special Inter-Ministerial Committee on Integrated Development has been created precisely in order to put complementary infrastructure development issues - together with intermodal planning and support systems - at the centre of its overall planning for integrated development, both urban and rural.
Staying with roads infrastructure for the moment: As engineers you will no doubt be familiar with South Africa's vital statistics, namely that the current condition of South Africa's national road network of approximately 7000 km is classified by SANRA as follows : 49% in good condition; 39% in fair condition; 12% in poor condition.
You will also no doubt know that this represents an estimated backlog of R 3 billion on expenditure in maintenance and required upgrading; and that if the current annual funding level of R 750 million from the fiscus is maintained, the predictions are that in five years time only 36 % of the network will be in good condition, 11 % in fair condition, while 53 % will have deteriorated into poor condition.
I don't have to tell you that the cost of repairing a road in poor condition is 18 times higher than that of maintaining a road in good condition; or that the vehicle costs incurred on travelling on a road in poor condition are twice those of travelling on a road in good condition.
We have known that there is a long term funding crisis since 1994, and that petitions for fiscal support for roads infrastructure cannot succeed against competing demands for social expenditure on health, education, welfare and so on. And you know that it's against this background that we have, as a matter of policy, required the Roads Agency to embark on a concerted programme of redevelopment and, where necessary, new construction, based either on state toll roads or private sector concessions such as the N4 and N3 rehabilitation and extension projects. Predictions indicate that successful implementation of the total programme will, within the next 5 years, leave 87 % of the network in good condition, 12 % in fair condition and only 1 % in poor condition.
This is extremely heartening news, and reconfirms us in our resolve to continue with the tolling and concessioning processes we have set in motion for the national road network.
Rural roads expenditure is a rather different, but equally challenging matter. Both in the Inter-Ministerial Committee I mentioned a moment ago and through the Roads Agency, we are continually looking for creative solutions.
Building on its now extensive SDI-based experience in labour-based construction methods, stimulation of SMMEs, technical training and skills transfer, SANRA has identified a wide range of short term projects to support the provinces in rural roads development initiatives linked to government's broader integrated rural development strategy.
Drawing on funding allocated under the Presidential Poverty Alleviation Programme, the Agency is focusing on projects designed to provide poor communities with desperately need basic access routes, while at the same time contributing to the quality of their lives through the provision of employment in labour-based construction, literacy training and the transfer of technical and project management skills.
I want to make a particular appeal today for a concerted public-private sector partnership approach to local roads infrastructure development, which draws upon the resources of many of the flourishing local economies that exist within South Africa, and channels them into integrated development programmes in many of our less developed areas which nevertheless show clear potential for agri-tourist and light industrial development.
I have covered quite a wide range of the issues on which you asked to me to share my thoughts with you. I hope that you have felt in sympathy with the general framework of values that has underpinned my remarks today, and that these remarks themselves have helped to give you the broad picture of where my I and my Department - and government as a whole - are heading.
In thanking you once again most sincerely for inviting me to speak to you today, let me reiterate my plea for the development of joint approaches to the many problems and challenges faced by the transport sector. My door is always open to anyone who brings constructive proposals to the table and is committed to developing a positive climate for public-private sector cooperation in meeting both the needs of the transport industry and those of our most disadvantaged communities.
I wish you a peaceful and reflective festive season. Come back from your break refreshed and recommitted to the important developmental tasks that face us all as South Africans. Above all, come back safely.
ARRIVE ALIVE IN A NEW MILLENNIUM.