The new locally-assembled buses for use by Joburg's Rea Vaya public transport system was launched today when Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, and Gauteng Premier Mokonyane visited the factory in Germiston and took a bus ride to Millpark station.
Minister Patel said that the ReaVaya system is the country's first and currently the most advanced integrated public transport system. The system to date cost R3,8 billion, of which about half, or R1,7 billion is for the current, phase 1B.
"At its core, it seeks to bring many of the benefits of car ownership to the public transport system: namely flexibility, speed and wide access. As the system develops, it is likely to attract a wider base of users, both working and middle class users, as we see is the case across the world. To date, the Rea Vaya system has created 21 925 jobs in the construction phase," he said.
Welcoming the launch of the new phase of the Rea Vaya system, Minister Patel pointed to government's success with localising bus, train and taxi manufacturing in South Africa.
"Last year, national government made changes to the procurement regulations to designate the bus industry for local procurement. What that means is that all public entities across all three spheres of government will procure only locally-assembled buses. Following that decision, the City of Joburg as well as the Cape Town metro put this requirement into their conditions of tender. Marco Polo will now assemble the buses for the country's largest city and Busmark will assemble Cape Town's buses in the Western Cape," he said.
"As we roll out the integrated public transport system in the other ten cities, they too will specify locally-manufactured buses for public entities to purchase, creating we hope the economies of scale and market size that will see a dynamic, competitive local bus assembly industry. Our national infrastructure plan is not simply the development of infrastructure. It is also a major effort to support broad-based industrialisation and skills development," Minister Patel said.
"Within this 12 months, 220 buses would have been made locally in the two largest metros with tender value of R624 m. Just two years ago, Joburg was importing all of its buses. We are now also producing 9000 minibus taxis locally, in new production centres in eThekwini and Springs and are ramping up production of trains in South Africa. These build on the success of the yellow metals production of earth-moving equipment in Richards Bay and the large car assembly industry," he said.
"Rea Vaya is part of a wider, R4,3 trillion infrastructure programme that is fundamentally reshaping the economy and the society," Minister Patel said.
"The National Infrastructure Plan announced in 2012 is the biggest intervention by government to lay the physical platform for inclusive growth and social development, in more than 40 years. It consists of 18 Strategic Integrated Projects, or what we call SIPs, that is turning the country into a construction site," he said.
The projects include rail-lines to the untapped manganese, coal, chromium, platinum and palladium mineral reserves of the country. It contains the plans to build new dams such as in the Eastern Cape, new hospitals across the country, two new universities and additional energy generating power stations using solar and coal energy and large new wind farms. It recognises the importance of broadband rollout to provide the communication backbone for a modern economy.
A large part of the plan is devoted to improving the logistics systems of South Africa, through new railway lines, a new seaport as well as new inland ports and an upgrade of the road systems.
"All these programmes are intended to make the life of citizens better through creating new economic opportunities and creating jobs, and by making our cities and rural areas better places to live," Minister Patel said.
"The spatial geography of apartheid separated out the economic hubs and the residential areas. It did so most dramatically through the old bantustan system that kept labour reserves in impoverished parts of the country, to service the affluent urban areas. But that same pattern was reproduced in the cities themselves, with the growth of large townships such as Soweto, that were dormitory settlements from which workers were transported daily to the industrial and commercial areas and affluent suburbs," he said.
The infrastructure programme seeks to address this legacy through improved spatial planning system to connect work and residence in a more integrated way.
"The other intervention is to improve the ability, through smarter and more integrated transport systems, for workers to travel to and from work. Modern cities work on a combination of transport modes: our challenge has been to connect these seamlessly so that workers can use these in combination to reach their destinations," he said.
The Rea Vaya system is part of a thirteen-city new integrated public transport system. These systems are currently being constructed in six cities, namely Johannesburg, Tshwane, Rustenburg, Cape Town, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay.
Over the next five years, government plans to roll these out to an additional seven cities, with integrated systems planned for Mbombela, Mangaung, Buffalo City, Polokwane, Msunduzi, Ekurhuleni and George.
Enquiries:
Manelisi Wolela
Cell: 071 313 4192
E-mail: mwolela@economic.gov.za
