Metro denies being given a warning by Department of Transport

The metro has refuted a comment made by Transport Minister Blade Nzimande in Parliament that the multibillion-rand Ekurhuleni Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system is a token white elephant that was launched prematurely and that the metro has been put on notice by the Department of Transport (DoT) and a final warning has been communicated.

Below are further comments made by Nzimande and responses from the metro.

The premature launch of Harambee in Ekurhuleni in 2017 with just eight buses is at such a sub-optimal scale that it cannot be viewed as a pilot phase one project let alone a viable bus service.

The metro introduced the starter service as a pilot phase with the intention to expand the service with added buses.

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The metro was meant to expand to 80 buses carrying 20 000 passengers a day in 2018 and currently is still under a quarter of this.

The expansion of the service was planned for 40 buses and subsequently 80 buses in 2019.

The DoT met with the metro in June and September 2018 and March 2019 and put them on notice that the metro needs to scale up to a proper operation of at least 40 buses in calendar 2019 or risk the department invoking the Division of Revenue Act powers to withhold transfer.

The metro remains committed to its plans to operate at least 40 buses during the 2019 calendar year.

Due to a lack of capacity and lengthy delays, the DoT is just looking to have a proper phase one up and running over the next five years that will link Tembisa, Kempton Park, OR Tambo International Airport, Boksburg and Vosloorus. We expect this to cost a total of R5-billion to R6-b in capital and when mature to carry around 100 000 weekday passenger trips.

Phase one (Tembisa to Vosloorus) when fully operational is anticipated to carry more than a 100 000 weekday passenger trips. The figure is based on the travel demand model and the household travel surveys conducted.

The DoT will not allow any grant spending on other phases until the metro can prove that it is running phase one successfully. This is likely to take three to five years. At that stage, future phases will have to be redesigned and costed to scale down on infrastructure.

The metro has acknowledged the high costs of the level of infrastructure and thus has taken a stance to operate and build only the required infrastructure. As such, a scaled-down approach has been adopted by the metro, with the next stage of phase one being planned with reduced infrastructure. This will therefore enable earlier implementation of future phases.

The metro has not been forthcoming regarding council contributions, but the DoT estimates it at around R40-million to R50-m per year in question.

The metro hereby confirms DoT’s estimates as accurate.

Harambee project needs to be professionalised and run viably with properly balanced costs and revenues and passengers. After appealing for this for over two years, the DoT has now given the metro until the end of 2019/20 to completely zero-base all costs and re-scale all operations to be viable and balanced and not a token white elephant. There is currently no excuse open to the city for the current mess and what remains is to drastically turn things around in 2019/20 or face the consequences.”

The Harambee system is already operational and gaining traction, with commitments in place, such as the procurement of buses, and therefore a zero-based budget approach will be detrimental to the project at this stage.

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