2010 World Cup Workshop
24 October 2006
The 2010 FIFA World Cup is a major milestone in our history and marks the
beginning of a major revolution in South Africa's transport system.
Our approach for this important event represents a major foundation for the
transport system up until 2020. For the first time in history South Africa will
have major investments across all transport systems, buses, passenger rail,
taxis and road networks, and this would represent the most widespread
development ever seen in our country.
And similarly our airports and aviation industry will take advantage of the
open skies as articulated by African Ministers' of Transport. General and
scheduled flights will also have to rise to the occasion.
Our underlying assumption in all this is our commitment to ensure safe,
secure, efficient and accessible transport systems for the national and
international soccer family, as well as South Africans beyond 2010.
We have begun our revolution to maximise the existing infrastructure and
integrating different transport modes as well as galvanising maximum support
from all South Africans. We have already begun with our major investments
across all areas of the transport system. We have allocated:
* R3,8 billion for the public transport and non-motorised infrastructure for
2010
* R8 billion for the development and improvement of all our airports
* R63 billion for the preservation and development of our road network
throughout the country
* R7,7 billion in the recapitalisation of taxis
* most importantly, R5 billion is being invested in the bus and passenger rail
systems.
Distinguished guests, our 2010 Transport Action Plan has three main areas
starting with the vision, the transport assessment and sector-based
preparations, including host city transport plans as well as implementation. It
also has four appendices being international best practice lessons, 2010
initial travel demand projections, project descriptions and review of
observations and lessons learned from Germany's 2006 FIFA World Cup.
The document is being released today as a blueprint for the transport sector
in preparing for the World Cup. I therefore call upon my Director-General, Ms
Mpumi Mpofu to take us through this document.
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Transport
24 October 2006
