Honourable speaker
Honourable premier
Honourable members
Government officials
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed a humbling experience to present the 2008/09 annual report during our 2009 provincial October Transport Month campaign. Honourable members would recall that this is an annual campaign instigated by government to highlight:
* achievements of the transport sector
* progress made in infrastructure development based service delivery that enhances economic growth and social development.
The campaign brings the spotlight projects to exhibit the government’s commitment to poverty eradication, skills development, infrastructure development and economic development. This year’s campaign will focus on dealing with promoting partnerships in development especially rural development and showcasing our state of readiness for the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup. The theme is: ‘Transport, the heart beat of South Africa’s Economy and Social Development’.
Honourable members, the year under review marked an era of accelerated service delivery to the masses of our people with a particular focus on the rural poor and previously disadvantaged. It was a period of enhanced improvement of our infrastructure and public transport system in order to present future generations with a place to live, work and invest in.
Our approach was in line with the objectives of the provincial growth and development plan and the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). Central to our efforts was the strengthened coordination of our work with various spheres of government and resource mobilisation for the maintenance of infrastructure. This report highlights both our achievements and challenges during this period with regard to:
* improvement of our internal capacity in order to respond to the transportation needs of the Eastern Cape communities
* promotion of cost effective, sustainable road upgrading and maintenance technologies
* strengthening of traffic and road safety through a community based approach.
Programme one: Administration
During the year under review, we have observed another increase in our revenue as we collected R317,8 million, instead of the projected R296 million. We have seen increased interaction with our suppliers through hosting suppliers’ days in an effort to improve compliance with the existing departmental procurement policies and procedures.
The department remains committed to continuously improve the internal control environment and pro-actively address previous year audit issues. This has been evidenced by the establishment of a risk management unit in October 2008, and the chief financial officer’s support from Provincial Treasury.
This period marked the commencement of our internship programme, where we employed 52 previously unemployed Eastern Cape graduates in the department and were placed in the MEC’s office, human resource development, supply chain management, community based transportation, finance, traffic safety, public transport, traffic control, information technology services and human resource management.
Young, highly skilled engineers were nurtured through our Construction Learnership project in projects such as Klipplaat to Jansenville Road, Alicedale Road, Peddie, Graaf-Reinet, Grahamstown and Ngangelizwe, further empowering communities and transferring the much needed skills. Honourable speaker, in this House today we have learnership project participants.
During this period, we have been able to manage the public private partnership (PPP) with Fleet Africa Eastern Cape. National Treasury assisted the procurement process in finding a new service provider. This was done strictly according to public private partnership legislation, whereby Provincial Treasury full bought into the process.
Programme two: Roads infrastructure
The 2008/09 financial year saw the introduction and implementation of our 80/20 strategy, which seeks to ensure that after 10 years, we have 80 percent of our road network tarred and 20 percent to remain gravel. In order to achieve this, we have integrated our Inaccessible and Impassable Roads programme into the Alternative Surfacing Technologies programme to ensure that as roads are made accessible, they are also surfaced so that a more sustainable solution is attained to our vast gravel network.
Certain strategic routes were prioritised, including the R72, the N2, Motherwell to Addo and Alicedale Road, which are critical for accessing the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We have seen the completion of certain important roads, including the Middledrift to Alice Road, Sulenkama Hospital Road and the Madwaleni Hospital Road and the commencement of work in other roads, including the Greenville Hospital Road and Zithulele Hospital Road.
Programme three: Public transport
Phase one of the Bhisho Airport was completed and followed by a successful hosting of a stakeholders’ session, where we presented various opportunities to service providers from various sectors of our economy, including civil aviation, tourism, car hire, property development, security, cleaning and catering services. We have received a number of proposals and one of those proposals is for airline services and will go through Cabinet processes for consideration.
We managed to finalise the designs for the upgrade of the Mthatha Airport. During this period, we observed progress in the restructuring of the subsidised bus passenger transport services. Mayibuye Transport Corporation showed signs of recovery and the department will continue to ensure that this parastatal is able to provide safe, reliable, accessible and affordable public transport service to our people.
We saw the start of the Africa’s best 350 limited phase two, which involved the distribution of more buses to OR Tambo and Alfred Nzo districts and the subsequent commencement of operations in the Chris Hani district.
Honourable members, despite these achievements, we continue to receive disturbing reports about the company’s buses that have been stoned and burned down by criminals, who are jealous of this development, especially in the Chris Hani district.
I would like to send a clear message to all those involved in that criminal activity that their days are numbered!
This was the last year for the Operating Licensing Board and we have now appointed a new board led by Mr Bitterhoudt. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the old board members led by Mr Padayachee for the good work. It was during this period that we managed to steer our back to rail strategy through the introduction of the Kei Rail weekend passenger service, which continues to gain momentum and the subsequent introduction of the daily service in April 2009. This has prompted the Rail Safety Regulator to extend the permit to operate on the Kei Rail line till July 2012.
We saw the introduction of the Apple Express tourism train, which is progressing very well. We have seen the intensification of our Maritime Awareness programmes, which we still need to enhance.
Programme four: Traffic management
Honourable speaker, the year under review saw a 30 percent decrease in road accidents during the last festive season. This can be attributed to all our law enforcement agencies and the innovative strategies that we have employed as the department, including the establishment of the special operations task team. As we move towards the 2010 FIFA World Cup, we will continue to improve our internal capacity in order to manage the traffic volumes during the tournament.
We invested a lot of resources in improving our traffic safety awareness programmes, including the Driver of the Year competition, No1 Taxi Driver of the Year Competition, Learner Driver project and Participatory Educational Techniques (PET).
Honourable speaker, I have pleasure to introduce to this house our provincial winners of the PET competition from Efata School for the Blind and Deaf based in Mthatha, who will represent us in the national competition to be held in KwaZulu-Natal in November 2009. They competed against learners with no disability and outshone them.
Programme five: Extended Public Works Programme, community based
We continued to make great strides with regard to the creation of jobs and skills development for our people through labour-intensive methods. During this period, we employed 11 240 household contractors, 144 road rangers, 594 people in our hospital roads programme (including Zithulele hospital, Greenville and Madwaleni hospitals’ access roads), and 1 046 people were employed temporarily.
This number continues to increase and we believe that we can make an indelible contribution to the achievement of government’s target of halving unemployment and poverty by 2014.
In conclusion, honourable speaker, I would like to thank the officials of the department led by the Superintendent-General Dr Marie de Villiers for the good work.
I hereby table the department’s annual report and the Mayibuye Transport Corporation’s annual report.
I thank you.
Enquiries:
Ncedo Kumbaca
Tell: 043 604 7584
E-mail: nossy.mzini@dot.ecprov.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Transport, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
6 October 2009
