honourable Stan Motimele
14 March 2006
Honourable Premier, comrade Sello Moloto,
Honourable Speaker,
Honourable members of the Provincial Legislature,
Mayors and councillors from various municipalities,
Traditional leaders,
Organised labour,
Taxi and bus industry representatives,
Commuters and commuter organisations,
All other stakeholders,
South African Council of Churches,
Leaders of other religious formations,
Business,
The media
Honourable guests,
Fellow citizens of Limpopo;
Honourable Speaker, allow me to share with the House this experience of
goodwill which I witnessed during the month of January this year and also make
a special acknowledgement related to that experience. This happened on a Sunday
afternoon. I was driving on the road Percy Fyfe from Ga-Mashashane to Mokopane.
This road, honourable Speaker, happens to be on the roads agency Limpopoâs
five-year road construction plan.
A sedan which was apparently overtaking a taxi on the gravel road had
capsized and trapped a terribly injured passenger inside. It was chaos. The
survivors of the taxi stood on the roadside confused, scared and some of them
angry.
Amidst this confusion there was this good Afrikaner family, there was no
jaws of life but the gentleman was creative enough to use his car jack to
release the injured while his wife, whom I later learnt is a private
professional nurse immediately administered first aid on the victims.
Honourable Speaker, may I take this opportunity to introduce to the House
what I have come to call, civilian heroes within the roads and transport
environment. Meneer en mevrou Botha kan u asseblief opstaan. Ons is trots op
julle. Julle is ân goeie voorbeeld van die demokratiese Suid Afrika waarin
mense moet saam lewe en mekaar help. Namens die Department en die hele
provinsie sê ons baie, baie dankie vir u.
Honourable Speaker, Mevrou Botha also had an assistant nurse in the form of
an off-duty police officer Captain Ngobeni. Captain Ngobeni ni kumbela kuri mi
yimelela, ba mi bona.
Budget Vote 2006/07 - 2
We shall remain indebted to your brave efforts and may all citizens learn
from you. We are indeed proud of you.
A special word of thanks also goes to the emergency services for their quick
response.
Honourable Speaker, as we enter the second decade of our freedom our people
in a quest to deepen democracy have become more assertive and adamant about
their in-alienable rights to service delivery. Honourable Speaker, I see that
as a mammoth challenge to both our Department and government as a whole.
In recent times the department experienced overwhelming support and
co-operation from members of the community and other important stakeholders in
our day-to-day activities.
This humbling state of affairs spurs us to be resolute even more than ever
before to intensify consultation with stakeholders so that when the Department
does everything for the people the Department should also do everything with
the people.
Honourable Speaker, let us now share with this House the highlights of the
current financial year; we are satisfied that we continue to occupy a position
of leadership in terms of gender equity. The glaring absence of disability and
other groupings that are supposed to be beneficiaries in this programme is
however worrisome. We want our Department to be a home for skilled people from
all walks of life. We also want our Department to be a home and centre for
skills development for people from all walks of life. We are, honourable
Speaker, therefore communicating with the office on status of disability in the
Premierâs Office to assist on this score.
Honourable Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to know that our road
construction programme is well on course and Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL)
continues to spend every cent with amazing ease. We must, however, mention that
the recent downpours have had a negative effect on the progress. The
construction of the drainage system which includes culverts and bridges on the
Chuene-Boyne Road is complete.
The actual upgrading of the road from gravel to tar of the remaining
kilometres will resume in earnest in the next financial year. Go tloga mouwe
lerole le tla thunya go fihla tsela e fela. We hope this, honourable Speaker;
will go a long way in making Boyne/Moria more accessible from different
directions for the majority of pilgrims.
From our additional allocation, we managed to cover all designs of access
roads to all our health centres in the five-year plan and construction will
commence immediately at the beginning of the next financial year.
We believe the key economic indicators of the Provincial Growth and
Development Strategy (PGDS) is located where our people are and the local
municipality is the constitutional structure that is closer to the people.
Therefore it is only logical to continue co-operating with this sphere of
government.
Budget speech 2006/07 - 3
In a bid to contribute to the empowerment of local government, we continue
to review the five-year plan of the Limpopo Roads Agency to be in line with the
Integrated Development Plans (IDP) and Local Economic Development (LED) plans
of municipalities.
Honourable Speaker, during the last festive season our province experienced
high traffic volumes unprecedented by any period. This is due to the newly
found comfortable position our province occupies in the previously untapped
tourist market. This, honourable Speaker, we have no doubt is attributed to
amongst others, the International Transport Convention hosted by our Department
in the province in May 2005 and of course many more such events that put our
province on the international map.
We therefore, honourable Speaker, in line with our PAVE Arrive Alive
Campaign which seeks to promote professionalism, awareness, visibility and
education from both road users and our traffic officers declare that our
traffic officers in addition to ensuring tourists safety on our roads will also
be the first point of reference to the tourists that come to our province in
droves.
We will continue to resource these dedicated men and women so that our
province will increasingly become a safe tourist destination.
Achievements for the year 2005/06 - 4
Honourable Speaker, allow me to share with the House the achievements of the
Department of Roads and Transport for the financial year 2005/ 2006:
1. Administration
1.1 Human Resource Management
In compliance with all policies seeking to address transformation in the
public service, the Department has gone a long way to deal with equity in terms
of race, gender and disability, furthermore the Department has confidently set
a trend once more by appointing Ms Mabel Makibelo as the Head of Department as
from 1 March 2006.
Honourable Speaker, in our endeavour to achieve the skills development
objective as set in the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) we
have awarded bursaries to 50 more students, bringing the total for our students
studying towards a degree in Transport Management.
Honourable Speaker, in this financial year we have trained 182 traffic
interns, admitted 107 administrative interns and absorbed both categories as
interns within the Department.
48 road interns that were inherited during the merging with roads are in the
process of Budget speech 2006/7 being employed by the Department. Of the 96
that were trained in the last financial year, 80 were employed by the
Department this financial year, the remaining were absorbed by the
municipalities. May I further indicate, honourable Speaker, that to date the
training college has trained a total of 337 students well within our target of
500 students in three years from 2005/06.
2. Public transport
Honourable Speaker, in this financial year we continued with the following
special projects to address transport backlogs and to fast track service
delivery to our people:
* The restructuring and unbundling of great north transport as required by
the National Land Transport Transition Act (NLTTA) has progressed to
implementation.
* The scholar transport programme piloted at Waterberg was rolled out in
Mopani during this financial year. To date 2 200 farm schools learners are
benefiting from this project.
We are on a daily basis updating records of learners to adjust the quality
of service in line with the tremendous increase of learners requiring transport
at farm schools.
Honourable Speaker, allow me to further convey my sincere appreciation to
the wonderful partnership we have with the Department of Education and the bus
and taxi industries in this regard.
2.1 Taxi Recapitalisation
Honourable Speaker, it is with great pleasure to announce that we are in the
lead in terms of the implementation of the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme. To
date 21 100 applications have been submitted for conversion and 3000 operating
licenses have already been issued. A service provider has been appointed to
develop a colour coding framework for taxis.
A Taxi Recapitalisation Management Unit (TRMU) will be in place by the end
of this month.
We are working around the clock to comply with the Ministerâs deadline of
the 31 May 2006, furthermore, all taxi operators have registered with South
African Revenue Services (SARS).
On this note allow me, honourable Speaker, to further express an
appreciation of the good relationship we have with the taxi industry and to
acknowledge and thank them for the peace maintained in the province.
2.2 Animal Drawn Cart Project
Budget speech 2006/07 - 5
As a measure to strengthen non-motorised transport, the Animal Drawn Cart
project has since been rolled out in the Capricorn District, in the Aganang
Municipality.
2.3 Aviation, rail and freight
Honourable Speaker, allow me to highlight that our Department developed a
pre-feasibility report on the resuscitation of rail lines in the province. We
are proud to announce that it is on the strength of this exercise that our
rail-freight concept on the improvement of rail infrastructure construction
made it to the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa
(AsgiSA) priority list and is number three of the 27 national priority
projects.
The project is part of the Dilokong Corridor which will eventually provide a
rail-freight link between Polokwane and the Richards Bay port.
I must congratulate the leader and initiator of this project, Ms Mihloti
Hetisani, for her sincere contribution in this regard. Honourable Speaker, I
understand she is the only woman in public transport at General Manager level
in the country.
Gateway Airports Authority Limited (GAAL) has been established to oversee
the operations and integration of all airports in Limpopo. Phase one of the
infrastructure development has been completed at Polokwane International
Airport, making it one of the safest airports.
As honourable members of the House might already be aware in support of
Bafana Bafana during the African Cup of Nations, a Boeing 727-200 was chartered
directly from Limpopo to Egypt. It is evident that we are without any doubt the
gateway to the rest of Africa.
2.4 Corridor development
In partnership with the mines along the Dilokong Corridor we have just
completed phase one of the constructions of a traffic centre which includes
amongst others, a law enforcement centre, a junior traffic training centre and
a weigh-bridge along the R37 road.
3. Road traffic and safety
The evident decrease in percentage of fatalities in the province, in the
recent Easter and festive seasons is a clear indication that our PAVE strategy
is highly effective.
Budget speech 2006/07 - 6
Honourable Speaker, the National Department of Transport has established and
is strengthening the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), whose main
objective is to oversee traffic management on all national roads. About 11
patrol vehicles were donated for this purpose to the Limpopo Department of
Roads and Transport. In addition to this we have committed funds to acquire 120
vehicles of which 54 are already in our possession. Honourable Speaker, we hope
this will greatly strengthen visibility and service delivery resulting in
safety on our roads.
We have made major inroads in inculcating the culture of professionalism as
enshrined in our Provincial Traffic Officersâ Code of Conduct.
Honourable Speaker, may I announce to this House today that we have recorded
a significant decrease in the number of complaints in respect of our traffic
officersâ conduct. However, this does not belie the fact that there are still
major challenges that are to be met with regards to the very conduct which
includes corruption.
Honourable Speaker, further allow me to announce that we have finalised the
process of devolving traffic functions to municipalities. We have to date
devolved all 15 traffic stations.
3.1 Number plates/letter âLâ
Honourable Speaker, as promised the phasing out stage of the letter âNâ from
our number plates to the letter âLâ has started. This is evident by the fact
that all number plates for all vehicles belonging to or in full use by Members
of the Executive Council (ExCo) bear the letter âLâ number plate.
4. Road infrastructure development and maintenance
4.1 Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP)
Honourable Speaker, the Department has made strides in the implementation of
the EPWP. We have undertaken a labour intensive project on fencing surface
roads in a project called Tsela Tshweu. This project has created jobs for the
majority of our people in the province. It is also imparting practical skills
that people could use beyond the confines of this project. Of critical
importance is the projectâs ability to eradicate poverty and save lives.
The fence that is being erected, honourable Speaker, is meant to keep stray
animals and pedestrians away from the unsafe crossing zones on our roads.
The distribution of labour employed in the project comprises of 60 percent
women, 20 percent youth and two percent people with disability. All these
people are from communities where this fence is being erected.
So far, we have fenced 450 km of roads in the project and this project has
employed five hundred and sixty nine (569) people.
5. Finance
5.1. Revenue collection
The Department has so far collected R120 million as revenue for the year
2005/6. Allow me to highlight the fact that the revenue collection for the
Department will decrease due to the fact that as we devolve traffic functions
to municipalities we also devolve the revenue.
6. Roads construction
Honourable Speaker, we are happy to announce that we have indeed concluded
training for the Gundo Lashu programme as a result all participants of this
programme have been capacitated with skills that will enable them to tender for
road construction projects like any other contractor in the market. This
programme is under review to realise its full potential as part of the
EPWP.
Priority projects for 2006/07 financial year
The following are priorities for the 2006/ 2007 financial year:
1) Administration
Honourable Speaker, may I assure you and members once more that the
Department remains committed to achieving absolute equity at middle management
by the end of the next financial year.
2) Roads infrastructure development and maintenance
We shall continue to:
* implement poverty alleviation, community skills development and job creation
programmes through the EPWP, mechanical learnership and internship.
* upgrade and maintain roads as per plans of the Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL)
in line with Municipal Integrated Development Plans (MIDP).
* implement labour intensive routine road maintenance that involves
communities.
3) Road traffic and safety
* We are well aware of the challenges we are currently facing with the
devolved traffic functions in municipalities, therefore we intend to develop
and implement the best practice model at driving license testing stations and
registering authorities to fully capacitate the municipalities to improve
service delivery to our people.
* We have during the Easter and festive seasons Arrive Alive campaigns,
noted with serious concern the increase in pedestrian deaths as a result we
will ensure multi agency treatment of hazardous locations.
* In an effort to strengthen our Arrive Alive - PAVE strategy we shall
continue to intensify road safety public education and awareness programmes. We
will also launch the Arrive Alive outcome based school program for foundation,
intermediate and senior phases.
* In support of our municipalities, we will develop a programme to
effectively monitor the devolved traffic stations.
* In order to improve efficiency in revenue collection from traffic fines we
are rolling out an electronic system to improve the management of traffic
contraventions.
* To fully capacitate the law enforcement component, we shall appoint 160
new traffic officers to comply with the PAVE Arrive Alive strategy.
* We have experienced a high accident rate involving heavy vehicles carrying
dangerous goods and this therefore necessitates the launch of the Dangerous
Goods Unit.
* We are indeed well aware and have registered the concerns regarding the
fact that the National Traffic Information System (NATIS) has not been easily
accessible. We have, in this respect, received full authority to re-open and
manage a fully functional Natis help desk in the next financial year.
* Consultations are in progress with the relevant stakeholders to make road
safety and traffic management an essential service.
4) GITO
Honourable Speaker, the development of an Information Technology (IT) strategy
that will assist with the alignment of IT objectives, business processes and
effective planning of departmental Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) infrastructure, the Master Systems Information Plan (MSIP), has incepted
in this financial year, implementation will take place in the next financial
year. This is budgeted at R1.3 million.
5) Public transport
* Our commitment in supporting the taxi industry is consistent with our
determination in building capacity to manage the industry as a viable transport
sector .As we have over the years been funding the industry on an incremental
budget, a fund management company will be appointed to assist the Limpopo
Provincial Taxi Council with management of the funds until proper skills have
been transferred.
* We have distributed forms throughout the province to enable operators to
register for a scrapping allowance; therefore a fully fledged scrapping agency
will be in place for those who wish to scrap their vehicles and for appropriate
management thereof.
* In terms of the implementation of the negotiated and tendered contract
system the route designs are to be revisited to ensure that services that were
rendered are in line with the passenger demand and further make provision for
passenger growth during the contracted period.
* In the Vhembe District, several small Historically Disadvantaged
Individual (HDI) operators operate within the interim contracts and we intend
converting them to negotiated contracts by April 2007. Through this we shall be
empowering these operators.
* We intend to continue to resuscitate the Car Wash Project as a job
creation measure for the youth, a budget of R300 000 will be put aside to pilot
this project in both the Capricorn and Vhembe districts.
* Plans are underway to facilitate the Second International Transport
Convention for 2007. I now present to you the budget expenditure for the
financial year 2006/07, our total budget for the following programmes:
Programme 1: Administration - R219 919
Programme 2: Road infrastructure - R1 100 888
Programme 3: Public transport â R314 235
Programme 4: Traffic management â R145 280
Total: R1 780 322
The breakdown of the budget is as follows:
Compensation of employees - R456 759
Goods and services â R247 993
Provinces and municipalities â R1 119
Departmental agencies and accounts:
* Gateway Airports Authority Limited â R20 000
* Roads Agency Limpopo â R787 500
Public corporations and private enterprises â R241 283
Households â R3 427
Buildings and other fixed structures â R14 000
Machinery and equipment â R8 241
Total: R1 780 322
Conclusion
In conclusion, honourable Speaker, allow me to congratulate the Waterberg
District on receiving the Premierâs Service Excellence Award for the Best
Staged Law Enforcement Operation. The Roads Maintenance Section for obtaining
the national award of the Most Organised Department in Implementing the
EPWP.
I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to the Premier, Sello
Moloto for the support and assistance he accorded to the Department with the
greatest genius.
I would like to thank the legislature for providing a platform for
democratic debates.
The Portfolio Committee for Roads and Transport for the unwavering support
and guidance they give to this Department.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts, for relentlessly giving advice to
the Department individually and severally.
The Acting Head of Department,
The Managing Director of the Gateway Airports Authority Limited (GAAL),
The Chief Executive Officer of Roads Agency Limpopo,
The personnel of the Department of Roads and Transport.
Honourable Pharephare Mothupi, for updating the Department on the taxi
problems around Sekgosese area.
Honourable Sara Mangena who, in spite of the fact that she was on holiday
with her family, took steps to investigate and also tried to organise equipment
to remove rocks on the road after heavy rains at the Strydom tunnel.
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Roads and Public Transport
14 March 2006
