Cape Town 21 May 2002
"Let Us Make Public Transport The Pride Of Our Nation"
1. Introduction: Importance Of Public Transport
Schedule 4 of the constitution declares public transport to be a matter of concurrent competence of national, provincial and local government. It is therefore appropriate to make public transport the subject matter of this address. The constitution also prescribes the way concurrency operates in our country. These provisions are taken into consideration in our approach to public transport.
Public transport - more specifically public passenger transport - is crucial for our economic well-being and growth. It is also crucial in order to address social needs. Transport performs both an economic and social function. It is an important input sector to promote growth of the economy. Public passenger transport must ensure that the millions of workers who rely on public transport for their conveyance to and from work, do arrive to start work on time and in good shape. It must ensure that they return home at the end of a day's work to enjoy the maximum possible time with their families and friends, to meet their social obligations and indeed to ensure that they have time to rest their bodies and minds - fit and healthy to start work the next day. Production and the quality of work are dependent on the quality, efficiency, reliability and affordability of public transport. There is the important social dimension. Public transport must enable the millions who rely on that mode to reach their families, their friends, their places of worship, places of sport and recreation. It must connect human beings with each other. It must help through connecting people to build communities and help to forge the nation. In other words transport is a great facilitator.
Tourists and visitors will find south africa so much more attractive if our public transport system is safe, efficient, affordable and reliable. In the light of soaring costs, I have no doubt that public transport has become more important than ever. We must work hard to meet public expectations. Let us work hard to make public transport the pride of our nation. We must put public transport high on the list of basic needs and I ask you, who are closer to local communities, to say so loud and clear.
We do not have a public transport system which serves the whole country equitably. The legacy of racial discrimination remains reflected in our transport system, as also the urban bias. We only have commuter train services in the six metro areas, namely Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and East London. These areas are also served by buses, mini-bus taxis and sedan taxis. In all other areas the public has to rely on buses and mini-bus taxis and sometimes sedan taxis. In many rural areas, people are still conveyed on our ldv's (bakkies), open trucks and even tractor drawn cattle trucks. Others used animal drawn vehilces. Many have to walk.
2. Rail Subsidised Commuter Transport
We have not been able over the past 20 or more years to extend our commuter train services, but over the past few years we have been able to make some improvement - railway stations, transport interchanges like park station, cape town, mowbray, which serve as a model for intermodal interchanges. We have implemented a programme to refurbish and upgrade rolling stock and signalling systems. By the end of this year, just under 100 coaches fully refurbished, looking like new will be on our raillines. We do want to make rail transport more attractive. Besides infrastructural improvement, two matters are worth noting:
Rail Safety Regulator
Last week the ncop passed the rail safety regulator bill. This is a gigantic step forward. Shortly, we will be in a position to proceed with the appointment of members of the board and then the chief executive officer. Already the regulations are being drafted, premises have been identified. The rail safety regulator bill makes provision for a rail safety management system in which the regulator will prescribe standards, monitor and enforce compliance whilst an operator will not be able to operate, unless it has a rail safety plan duly approved by the regulator and complies fully with the plan. The bill makes provision for greater accountability on the part of operators and also for greater transparency, better enforcement and compliance.
The bill deals in the main with operational safety and security of persons and property arising from operational safety issues.
The second issue relates to the security of commuters at stations and on trains.
Cabinet has in this regard given the green light for the creation of a special division of the south african police service, whose function it will be to provide seity at national key points, but also at stations and other transport points.
An interdepartmental task team is hard at work, led by the department of safety and security and will soon submit its implementation proposals to cabinet. We are confident that we will be able to make rail transport more attractive.
Also shosholoza meyl will in terms of the restructuring plans agreed to with trade unions be brought under one umbrella together with metrorail and sarcc, sothat we would have one streamlined passenger train service throughout south africa. When people have to travel long distances, we would also like greater movement from road to rail. The railway lines to khayelitsha will be extended to baden powell involving the building of two additional stations and at mabopane the building of an intermodal interchange is in progress.
The labour department is looking at the issue of occupational safety and working hours for drivers and other workers. Through the transport, education and training authority, we have a programme in place for training of train drivers and other personnel to ensure high quality service as we go forward.
Over the last number of years commuter rail has experienced financial difficulties and cabinet had to be approached annually for additional funding related to operational and capital funding requirements. National treasury made a substantial increase in the capital allocation in terms of the current mtef budget cycle, but no additional allocation was made for operating subsidies.
But currently we also face huge financial problems. The current rail commuter services cannot be provided at the level of operational funding, which has been provided for in the mtef baseline allocations.
The south african rail commuter corporation (sarcc) is contractually committed, given its contract with metrorail, to expenditure, which makes up over 95% of its budgeted expenditure. Any potential reductions in the remaining 5% of expenditure could not be meaningful, had it indeed been possible.
The only way in which sarcc budget could be approved to correspond to the available funding, would be to renegotiate the service levels stipulated in the current agreement with metrorail for the provision of commuter rail services, combined with increases in passenger fares. However, the required savings will only be possible through major service reductions, such as cancellation of after hours and weekend services altogether, in conjunction with major increases in passenger fares. These drastic measures will of course have major consequences and will directly affect government objectives of poverty alleviation.
I hope that such drastic steps wil prove unnecessary.
I can also indicate that the department in co-operation with the department of public enterprises and other roleplayers has just finalised a national rail transport policy for south africa and a detailed strategic rail transport plan. The policy document outlines government's vision and objective for railways and the plan is a detailed action framework to address the key challenges affecting the railway sector. Aproval of the policy and plan by government will result in a more comprehensive programme of rail improvement throughout south africa. Hopefully this would be accompanied by appropriate funding.
Bus Transport
I should indicate at this stage that The National Land Transport Transition Act makes provision for the complete restructuring of road based transport in South Africa. It makes provision for national transport planning, provincial planning and local planning. Over the next few years municipal public transport planning at local government level will be strengthened. In anticipation of this a good co-operative arrangement already exists between national, provincial and local governments, especially at the metro level. The restructuring of the bus industry takes account of this development. In the past the industry was dominated by a few monopolies holding lifelong permits and covering a large number of routes. In line with the NLTTA, the lifelong permits are currently being substituted by five year operating licences.
Routes are being broken up into smaller packages, thereby making it possible for smaller operators to tender. We are moving from negotiated agreements to a system of competitive tendering. The new system has allowed black entrants - men, women and companies - to enter the bus industry. It also allows those involved in the taxi industry to enter the bus industry, thereby ending the chinese wall between the two.
In moving from the old system to the new, we have run into some difficulty. Because the planning regulations were not in place, provinces were not able to finalise their transport plan and therefore moving to the competitive tender system was delayed. New regulations will come into operation on 1 june 2002and the national department will assist the provinces to develop provincial transport plans. Over the next few years therefore, and without sacrificing the standard of service, we will see the flowering of black participation in the bus industry.
But once again the current financial pressures are enormous. Our baseline allocation for operational costs is inadequate. If the current allocations for operational cost increases remain at current levels and are not improved, levels of subsidized services will have to be reduced. Again as in the case of commuter rail, we hope this will not be necessary.
,b>Rural Transport And Development
The plight of rural people is well known and well documented. Communities living in rural areas are the most disadvantaged people as they are faced with abject poverty and are being excluded from the social and economic mainstream. Mobility and access to transport facilities is essential to their everyday life in order to break their isolation and become active participant in developing their lives.
The challenge is how do we facilitate this change. It is acknowledged that rural transport has been neglected in the past because of lack of strategic guidance in rural transport. As an intervention to the situation, the department in conjuction with provinces and local government is engaged in the following initiatives:
Non-Motorized Transport - Animal/Human Drawn Carts
In the next few months, the department will roll out the non-motorised transport (nmt) program in the kgalagadi and botlhabela presidential rural nodes. This is a new program, which has four sub-components to be delivered:
Shova Kalula National Bicycle Transport Strategy
In the previous financial year the department, provinces, the national roads agency and afribike implemented phase 1 of shova kalula. This involved setting up 11 shops in 7 provinces in mostly rural areas. Over 5 000 low cost bicycles were distributed.
We are now ready to move into the second phase. The national roads agency has issued an open tender to bicycle product suppliers for the supply of mostly new bicycles. What shova kalula is teaching us is that we need to promote non-motorised transport much more aggressively as it is something that improves the lives of our people requires less funding than motorised transport and can be implemented quite quickly.
Rural Transport Strategy
This year the department embarked on phase two of a process of finalising the formulation of a national rural transport strategy. Phase two is taking shape within an overarching government's framework of promoting sustainable rural development namely the integrated sustainable rural development program/strategy commonly known as the isrds/p.
During the phase two the department will be pursuing an incremental approach to solving rural transport problems as well as rural development. This will entail engaging in practical as well as visible strategic planning and also delivering action-oriented interventions.
Urban Renewal
With regard to the urban renewal program, we are currently busy with projects in four of the urban renewal nodes, namely, Khayelitsha, Kwamashu, Galeshewe and Alexandra.
In Khayelitsha, we have started the process of the extending the commuter rail line by just over 4km. The design for the extension of the line and stations from Khayelitsha to Baden Powell will be finalised by the end of the year and consultant for the building of the line and two stations will be appointed by march 2003. We are currently in consultation with the provincial and local authorities regarding the building of an intermodal facility in the Kwamashu area. It is envisaged that various funding options such as public private partnerships be tested as part is this project. The department is embarking on a bicycle project in Galeshewe. The council is already busy developing bicycle paths in the area.
The Minibus Taxi Transformation Process
Minibus Taxi Be Legal Campaign
From the current reports received from provinces, indications are that the be legal campaign (blc) yielded far more positive results in terms of legalising illegal operations that existed before. Six provinces are almost done with the blc exercise whilst three are nearing completion.
We are currently faced with challenges in terms of speeding up the processing of the applications received to ensure that permanent operating licenses are granted to those who qualify to receive them. Consistent with this development is the challenge of route verification that must be done not only on applied routes but also on routes that operations take place on.
The Democratisation Process:
The taxi democratisation process started at a lower level with associations, then moved to a higher level, being provincial elections and eventually the national elections that saw the formation of south african national taxi council (santaco). The national elections ended in september 2001 with the formation of a more democratically and fully representative structure that government could liaise with put in place.
Since the democratisation process, we have seen more democratic representivity within the taxi industry taking place like never before. The industry is now united and more joint decisions are being taken without much fear of reprisals. Less violence, intimidation, harassment, fights over routes and general lawlessness within the industry exist since the democratisation process.
Recapitalization
Now that the industry is united, formalised and the be-legal campaign is nearing its end, we are able to proceed with the recapitalisation programe in full co-operation with the industry. There is only one outstanding issue, and that relates to the electronic management system. Government is in discussion with the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO). Once agreement has been reached and the best and final offer process (BAFO) completed, government will immediately announce the winning bids. In the meanwhile consultations are taking place within government with a view to finalising all details relating to the operation of the recapitalisation programme.
Conclusion
Time does not permit me to deal with the issues of road safety and infrastructure development. There is progress in the implementation of the nine projects identified under the road to safety strategy. The infrastructure fund launched by government, including the municipal infrastructure fund will transform south african roads over the next 5 to 10 years. There are many potholes today. They will become a thing of the past. There are no roads in many rural areas. Over the next decade that will become a thing of the past. Our road network - national, provincial and local roads (including rural) will meet the social and economic needs of our country and region. As part of sadc and as part of the african union with nepad as its flagship, south africa will play its rightful role. And transport will play its rightful role to contribute to a better life for all.
THANK YOU.