Opening remarks by Minister of Transport Sibusiso Ndebele at the Transport Lekgotla, Cape Town

Deputy Minister Mr. Jeremy Cronin
Members of the Portfolio Committee on Transport
MECs
Members of Mayoral Committees
Director-General Mr George Mahlalela
Heads of Department
CEOs and Board Chairpersons of Transport Agencies
Secretary-General of Santaco
All Government officials
Ladies and gentlemen

In the Budget Speech delivered in parliament yesterday, the Transport sector was allocated R66 billion for 2011/12. This allocation is an important indicator of the important role this sector must play in the creation of jobs, the development of our urban and rural communities as well as the improvement of logistics.

This money is for the national department, agencies and municipalities focusing on the improvement of our road infrastructure, public transport, rail improvements and road safety. A major portion of this money is to allow us to address the question of road maintenance, with specific focus on potholes and routine maintenance. The important question we need to focus on is around road infrastructure, rail, public transport and traffic safety.

In 2009, the country decided to focus on five priorities which included education, health, rural development and agrarian reform, taking forward the fight against crime and creating jobs. 

As President Zuma reminds us, while we have done well on these priorities, unemployment and poverty persist despite the economic growth experienced in the past 10 years. Government has declared 2011 the year of job-creation through meaningful economic transformation and inclusive growth.

This is a time to work harder, to work smarter and with increased efficiencies to fight poverty, unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure, delays in services and the management of our stakeholder relations throughout the sector.

• We must see better co-ordination between all levels in our sector and promote co-operative decision-making;
• Over time we must co-ordinate and align priorities, budgets, policies and activities across inter-related functions and sectors;
• We must facilitate the smooth flow of information within the transport sector, and between government and communities, with a view to enhancing the implementation of policy and programmes; and
• In line with cooperative governance, we must promote the prevention and resolution of conflicts and disputes.

Through the Director-General and the Project Management Unit, we must draw a common agenda and vision permeating our transport sector with clearly identifiable objectives and targets. So we must see the continuation of structured engagements with communities, with business, with ourselves and with every stakeholder in the transport sector on all relevant issues.

In order to achieve our mandate, we have broadly organised ourselves into the following areas:

• Roads;
• Public Transport;
• Aviation;
• Maritime;
• Rail;
• Integrated Planning and Development; and
• Corporate Services.

This Lekgotla must articulate a clear roadmap on the following challenges:

The roads programme

In the beginning of February 2011, we convened a special MinMEC to discuss the road maintenance programme. Since 1995, we have repeatedly warned that the lack of investment in maintenance could lead to the total collapse of our network. The provincial and local road infrastructure is collapsing through lack of maintenance. It will not assist merely to complain about the neglect of the infrastructure. Ours is to tackle it with the urgency it deserves.

An amount of R6. 4billion has been made available in 2011/12 to deal with road maintenance and access for communities. It will amount to R22 bn by the end of the 2014 financial year. We have named it S’HAMBA SONKE and it is a special project.

Not only are we going to achieve the improvement of our provincial road infrastructure, but through it we must realise the goal of job-creation, especially for the rural poor women and youth, and also meaningful Black Economic Empowerment. The implementation will include the national roll-out of the Zibambele Road Maintenance Programme and similar programmes to increase the labour content in our maintenance programmes.

An element of S’HAMBA SONKE is the compulsory updating of road condition information through the Know Your Network Programme. The Heads of Departments should not be the only ones who know their roads better than anyone in their provinces. Regional engineers and superintendents should inspect the condition of the roads on a daily basis. In addition, Traffic Officers should also inspect the condition of roads because, as we know, there are three important elements - engineering, education and enforcement.

Under the aviation programme, we have Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) and the Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS). One of the challenges we face in the region at SADC level is to work together with our neighbours to develop airport infrastructure and aviation safety facilities.

Last year, we signed our Delivery Agreement with President Zuma committing ourselves and the transport sector to a number of key strategic focus areas, the majority of which fall within the term of this government.

We have distilled these key strategic areas into the following Ministerial Outputs

• We want to increase the market share of total freight on rail from 250 million tons to an annualised 900 million tons by 2014 - freight and commuter movement of the future is by means of rail. Appropriate cargo on appropriate mode and commuters in public transport with rail as the backbone.
• We want to benchmark the cost of building and the maintenance of roads and to develop an appropriate funding model for supply and maintenance.
• We have prioritised the Implementation of the Road Infrastructure Strategic Framework for South Africa (RISFSA).
• The implementation of the approved Rural Transport Strategy for South Africa is urgent - intrinsic in our work should be changing people’s lives. We must narrow the distance for our people to schools, clinics and services.
• We must meet our domestic and international commitment to reduce road accident fatalities from 14 600 by 2014 (a 5% per annum reduction) - 2011 is the Decade of Action for Road Safety worldwide. We will do everything- education, enforcement and engineering- to bring down road crashes.
• Development of Integrated Rapid Public Transport Networks in twelve metros and six rural districts.

Road safety

May 2011 will see the launch of the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety. One of the key elements of this campaign is to halve road fatalities by 2015. If 14000 people died in our country in 2010, this means we must have only 7000 people die on our roads through accidents.If in KwaZulu-Natal, 1000 people died in 2010, this number must be reduced to 500 by 2014.If 300 people died on our roads in the King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality last year this should be halved to 150 by 2014.

This will only happen when the National Department of Transport, the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), Provinces and Municipalities work together to halve these national fatalities by 2014.

In 1998, the RTMC was established.It was established through a unique piece of legislation that incorporates national, provincial and local spheres of government.

It creates a legal entity chaired by the Minister of Transport with provinces and municipalities as shareholders. Putting the RTMC in order is one of the urgent tasks facing us as the transport sector and one which presents us an opportunity to demonstrate coordination in action. Simultaneously, the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Act was passed 12 years ago. Its implementation has seen too many confusing starts and stops which have been very confusing to the public.

Sorting out these and other issues will demonstrate our commitment to the Decade of Action for Road Safety. To ensure proper coordination at national level, we will deploy some of our senior officials which will ensure that we expedite the establishment of structures and process for the management of the AARTO process.

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate my colleagues, the MECs, for the implementation of the new National Rolling Enforcement Plan which began operating in October 2010. The vigour and enthusiasm of all provinces has been very encouraging. To ensure proper involvement of the community, Community Road Safety Councils will be established in all provinces and local municipalities.

Public transport transformation

The transformation of our public transport system has become our most urgent task. The problem of public transport confronting us today might very well have emerged long before us. However, for the solutions we no longer have the luxury to defer resolving them.

Colleagues will remember in the build up to the 2009 elections that the elections were almost threatened because of problems on the introduction of Rea Vaya. No less than the President himself had to give an undertaking that the problems will be solved.

Indeed, in his 4^th of June 2009 SoNA, the President announced that the Minister of Transport was to meet the taxi industry on 11 June 2009.

Tribute must be paid to the maturity of the taxi industry, provincial leadership, particularly of the Gauteng province, that this issue was resolved.

Two weeks ago, we handed 66% of Rea Vaya, the majority shareholding in the controlling company, to the taxi industry.This constitutes one of the most significant BEE transactions.Our commitment and resolve can no longer be doubted.The current issues in public transport in the Gauteng province involving the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Scheme are still with us dating back from 2006.

A Task Team, comprising NDoT and GPG, must report back before the end of March, after which all the affected parties must resolve the way forward.

The next ten years are critical for the transformation of our public transport system. Most of our urban centres require innovative sustained efficient and affordable public transport systems.

While we accept that solving our public transport system will take many years, I would like us to find short-term remedial measures which will improve the situation. For an example, in my discussion with Premier Nomvula Mokonyane we agreed that we needed to find short-term solutions which could include the following remedial solutions:

• Increase the fleet of buses, taxis and coaches in some of the critical routes;
• Developing an agreed upon business compact between taxi, bus and rail operators to ensure coordination;
• Improve our commuter information systems; and
• Any other possible remedial measures.

This kind of intervention should be linked to the engagement process on the GFIP tolling process and the launch of the Joburg – Gautrain commuter route and the feeder systems. Therefore, one of the resolutions we are expecting in this Lekgotla is the establishment of a Steering Committee which will drive this project. This Steering Committee must be represented by the following stakeholders:

1. Department of Transport.
2. Gauteng Provincial Government (Premier‘s Office and Provincial Dept of Transport).
3. Joburg – Tshwane and Ekurhuleni Metros.
4. SANRAL.
5. PRASA.
6. Gautrain Management.
7. SANTACO.
8. SABOA.
9. Organised labour.
10. Organised business
11. Commuter organisations

There is a clear challenge in our public transport system.

One of the challenges is around the transport subsidies. We are still far behind in terms of developing long term contracts, the integration of the taxi industry into the subsidy net and the finalisation of our municipal transport plans. This problem is causing havoc in some areas where services have been discontinued so therefore we need to establish a nationally coordinated programme to drive this public transport integration process with clear time lines and deliverables.

This nationally integrated process must deliver new negotiated and tendered contracts in 2011 in all provinces. The national structure and its terms of reference which will manage and coordinate this must be finalised by the public transport commission so that by the end of the Lekgotla we have an agreement.

Rail investment programme

• We all agree that our entire rail asset base has reached the end of its life cycle. Continuing with the rehabilitation programme alone has become counter-productive. This is true of both our passenger and freight rail services.
• There is a need for a re-investment in both the existing network and new routes in order to respond to new post-apartheid spatial and economic dynamics. Through our various processes, we have identified rail projects of strategic importance.
• We need to have focused intervention on some of our key passenger and freight corridors. Most of these corridors offer us not only the opportunity to drive a focused rail revitalisation programme, but it helps us to achieve a coordinated implementation which includes our road network, ports and the developmentof specific urban and rural modes along the corridors.
• There are possibilities of country- to-country technology partnerships to drive this programme. There seems to be appetite for this project in many capitals of the world.

There are specific corridors that require our focused attention. These include:

• Durban - Joburg Transport Corridor: To fast track the development of the Durban Johannesburg Corridor, we have established a multi-agency structure with representation from the Gauteng Provincial Government, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, the eThekwini Municipality and Johannesburg, the Department of Trade and Industry, Public Enterprises to drive the development of passenger and freight services in that corridor. The structure is looking at the improvement of the Durban Port, the future use of the old DIA site, Harrismith, Cato Ridge and City Deep logistics hubs.
• Maputo Rail Corridor.
• Ngqura – Joburg – Sishen Corridor.
• North – South Corridor.
• We have been asked to coordinate the work of the North-South Corridor by the African Union Heads of State.
• We are inundated with private sector driven and fully-funded rail development proposals. We need to encourage these kinds of proposals.
• There are regulatory issues we need to resolve, which encourage these kinds of investments without compromising our long-term economic and development interests as a state.

In addition, the National Transport Master Plan (NATMAP) identified long distance train services for Johannesburg-Durban, Johannesburg-Musina and so on. There’s a lot of excitement on this matter, particularly from other countries.

This is not surprising because this would be one of the biggest this country has ever made.For our part, there is not yet any formal process except we have asked that up to July 2011 all interested parties must submit Expressions of Interest.

In the meantime, we will brief Cabinet on this process and the outcome of the Expression of Interest and only then will a focused feasibility study be conducted.

Yesterday, the Minister of Finance confirmed the commitment of government to the refurbishment of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) rolling stock, as per the submission we have made to Cabinet in this regard.We are presently finalising the feasibility which enables our financing model.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are certain that we will emerge at the end of this interaction with better clarity of vision, a keener sense of mission and a surer sense of our different roles in driving our country forward through job-creation, better transport infrastructure and services, and the resolve to remove all challenges in our way.

Thank you.