One of the major challenges that we have in the transport sector, as in other infrastructure-related sectors, is that there is considerable pressure on us to constantly address "backlogs"- and, of course, the challenge of backlogs is indeed a serious matter.
However, the problem with a fixation on "backlogs" is that we can begin to think that the place we have been coming from since 1994 was basically fine, and that the problem since 1994 is that we have let "standards slip", and so there are "backlogs".
What gets lost in this narrow fixation on backlogs is that in many parts of our country there is dynamic and irreversible change significant urbanisation, for instance, as the apartheid-era restrictions on mobility have been lifted. This urbanisation is not just to the major cities, but also to dozens of secondary cities in our country.
On the other hand, not all secondary cities are growing, some are declining, particularly in some former mining towns in which the mineral resource has been exhausted and in which ineffective future planning occurred over the decades. All of this is to say that as we plan and implement the roll-out of transport infrastructure, which might last for 30 or 50 years or longer, we need to:
- Make sure that it is linked to a long-term and sustainable planning vision
- That transport infrastructure is integrated with other economic and social infrastructure - human settlements, hospitals, or Special Economic Zones, etc and
- Above all, that we are not just catching up with back-logs, but we are actively transforming our country for the better.
- By placing it on to a new growth path that is job-creating and that does not just lock us into a semi-colonial, semi-peripheral role in the global economy as an exporter of unbeneficiated minerals and agricultural produce, and the importer of capital and luxury goods.
- By ensuring that we are not just catching up with backlogs, but we are beginning to transform the racialised and inequitable geography of South Africa by providing transport infrastructure that helps to develop neglected rural regions - former Bantustans, for instance, or with transport and other infrastructure that begins to abolish the racialised dormitory township/suburb urban divide in our towns and cities.
This is the context in which the Department of Transport (DoT) is actively participating in the recently launched Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC). The PICC was launched in October last year. It is chaired by the President, with the Deputy President acting as deputy chair.
The plenary PICC is made up of a range national line ministers, all 9 premiers, metro mayors, and South African Local Government Association (SALGA). Its key objective is to identify strategic integrated infrastructure projects that will have a catalytic impact on job creation, on economic development, and on social transformation. It is also critically concerned with facilitating effective alignment across line departments and different spheres of government.
Colleagues will know that over several years, and particularly since the onset of the 2008 global economic crisis, government has identified a major, multi-year, multi-billion rand infrastructure programme as our key, contra-cyclical intervention to sustain job creation and economic growth as best as possible.
The challenges of hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup showed that a state-led infrastructure build programme could mobilize resources and rally broad South African support and enthusiasm. However,the World Cup was a once-off event for us, and with the event over we tended to find that the wave of infrastructure programmes had slackened off.
A key objective of the PICC, then, is to develop a sustained, multi-year pipe-line of infrastructure projects - with proper prioritisation and phasing. A strategic and phased infrastructure pipe-line will also enable us to shepherd scarce resources financial resources and skills, but also material inputs like cement, wood,steel and bitumen.
The PICC has now identified 17 Strategic Integrated Projects (SIPs) and Cabinet has endorsed these 17 SIPs. Allow me to highlight several of these SIPs in which the DoT is playing an active, and sometimes a leading role.
SIP 1: Is centered around unlocking the resources of the Northern Mineral Belt primarily in the Waterberg region. It is a massive infrastructure project involving water, electricity, communications and transport and impacting, not just on Limpopo, but also Mpumalanga, NW, and even Swaziland and possibly Botswana.
In the course of this year the major transport sub-projects that will see progress include the Eskom-Majuba Rail in Mpumalanga (ground clearing, site establishment, layer works, and the commencement of structures for bridges, including the Vaal River Bridge)- this will begin in October this year.
We will also be busy this year with the Transnet-Waterberg Feeder Rail- to upgrade it from 6 Million tons per annum to 24 Mtpa. In the course of this year the feasibility study and environmental approvals will be undertaken. Similarly with the Transnet Swazi Rail and the proposed increase in the overall capacity of the Coal Export Line to Richards Bay, lifting its capacity to 81Mtpa.
While we proceed with these major logistics infrastructure projects, related to the Northern Mineral Belt, we should not forget social infrastructure. The massive industrial developments around Lepalale are seeing a new city emerge in the veld. This presents us with the opportunity to create a new,post-apartheid city from the foundations up. The challenge is to create a new, more integrated and green city at Lepalale.
SIP2: Is the critical freight logistics artery for our country and our region- the Durban-Free State-Gauteng corridor. There are numerous mega-sub-projects within this SIP- including the expansion of the existing Durban port, the commencement in 2017 of work on a new, dig-out port at the old Durban International Airport, integrating Dube Trade-port more effectively into the corridor, developing Harrismith in the Free State as a key distribution hub, linking to the enhancement of agro-processing in the province;and the development of three new inland ports in Gauteng to supplement City Deep and to relieve road congestion.
At the heart of this particular SIP is a significant improvement in rail freight capacity and efficiencies along this corridor. We need to shift considerable freight back on to rail from road.
In the course of this financial year, amongst other things,Transnet will be developing junction modifications to separate PRASA from freight rail, and to procure additional block signals to allow for more trains. TFR is also involved in a major recapitalisation programme, with the acquisition of a new fleet of locomotives.
SIP3: Is the South Eastern Node and Corridor Development project like the previous two SIPs it involves a significant emphasis on transport infrastructure and an important inter-face between different provinces.
SIP3 has two key axes the first, to the north, is based on two major sub-projects the Umzimvubu dam and irrigation project and the N2 Wild Coast road development. This axis is essentially about addressing the developmental needs of one of the most under developed and poverty-stricken regions of our country.
It is also about using infrastructure to help to resuscitate agriculture and agro-processing in the region and to connect these activities not just to markets in the South of the province, but also to KwaZulu-Natal and to the N3 logistics artery.
The second dimension of SIP3 is anchored around Nqura and around connecting the E Cape more dynamically with the N Cape through the expansion of a manganese rail line. Next month, the construction of a brand new Manganese Sinter Plant at Sishen will be completed and it will be commissioned by June next year.
It will be linked by rail to Nqura, and we are exploring the possibility of a Maganese refinery at Nqura. In the course of this year the development of Nqura as a transshipment hub will be enhanced through the extension of the current 2- berth terminal to a 4-berth terminal.
Meanwhile, as with other industrial based SIPs, we need also to remember the imperative of integrating social infrastructure into our planning. For this reason,in the context of another SIP SIP7L focused on transforming our cities we are working to ensure that Metrorail prioritises the Motherwell rail extension with a view to eventual better commuter access to the Nqura development.
Other SIPs focus on other provinces- SIP4 is focused on unlocking the economic opportunities in the NW Province- in which NW will be given priority in the national plans on road maintenance and repair, on electricity transmission and distribution,and on water, sewage and sanitation infrastructure.
SIPS is focused on the Saldanha-Northern Cape Development corridor- focusing on the ore-line from Sishen, but also looking at developing a Special Economic Zone at Saldanha to ensure beneficiation and to build on gas exploration and ancillary activities and on oil rig maintenance.
SIP6 focuses on the 23 most challenged district municipalities in our country. SIP7 focuses on our 12 major cities and it has as its strategic objective using a coordinated infrastructure build programme to ensure that we begin to transform the racial apartheid geography of our cities that still prevails,as well as addressing the economic dysfunctional challenges of urban sprawl in our cities.
Last week some 60 commuters were injured in a bus accident between Thaba Nchu and Bloemfontein. This is just one more symptom of a deep-seated legacy that we have- it is a legacy that is a transport problem, but it is much more than a transport problem.
The city of Mangaung consists, essentially, of the old Bloemfontein, a relatively compact urban space and 50-60 kilometres away Thaba Nchu in which some 30% of Mangaung's citizens are living. There are few jobs and few amenities in Thaba Nchu, and so one-third of Mangaung's nominal citizens are still,in effect,migrant labourers condemned to daily migrancy.
We are not going to transform our South African urban social reality simply by providing safer transport along the 60 km corridor between Bloemfontein and Mangaung we have to begin to transform the geography, the infrastructure, the social resources of all of our towns and cities- and this is the major focus of SIP7.
SIP7: Is focused on ensuring that there is much better integration between human settlement planning, public transport infrastructure, and the provision of bulk infrastructure.
Other SIPs in the PICC programme are focused on electricity generation and transmission, on greening our economy, on agro-logistics and rural infrastructure, on revitalizing public hospitals and other health facilities, on the national school build program, on higher education infrastructure on expanding access to communication technology, on the SKA, and on African Regional Integration.
In all of these programmes,in one way or another, transport infrastructure also needs to feature. For instance, Phase lB of the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Johannesburg is taking the BRT system past two major university campuses University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Wits and it will therefore also need to connect with the emphasis on student accommodation in the higher education SIP.
As colleagues will appreciate from this brief overview of the PICC from the perspective of the DoT, at the heart of this massive infrastructure programme lies the imperative of effective cooperative governance- across different line departments, between different spheres national and provincial, provincial and local, and even across different political parties in office.
We need to drive this programme as one government. For all of these reasons, the NCOP is ideally placed to act as a key over-seer, monitor and evaluator of progress and of challenges. Certainly as the DoT we look forward to an ongoing dynamic relationship with yourselves.
