The City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) remains committed to expanding its multi-billion rand Harambee Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system, which had, according to the DA, been labelled a white elephant by Blade Nzimande, the Minister of Transport.
Action plans are in place and being implemented to ensure the achievement of set milestones as submitted to the Department of Transport, said Themba Gadebe, spokesperson for the City.
Mike Waters MP, DA deputy chief whip in the National Assembly and Lethabong constituency head, in a recent statement said this scathing comment was made by Nzimande in reply to a Parliamentary question he (Waters) asked.
According to Waters, Nzimande also said the system was launched prematurely.
“In addition, the CoE has been put on notice by the Department of Transport and a final warning has been communicated.”
In reaction, the metro said it was not aware of any final warning being issued.
Waters said the minister stated in his reply:
• The premature launch of Harambee in 2017 with eight buses could not be viewed as a pilot phase 1 project. The city was meant to expand to 80 buses, carrying 20 000 a day in 2018, and currently is still under a quarter of this.
• The Department of Transport met with the City in June and September 2018 and March 2019 and put them on notice that the city needs to scale up to a proper operation of at least 40 buses in 2019, or risk the department invoking the Division of Revenue Act powers to withhold transfers.
• Due to lack of capacity and lengthy delays, the Department of Transport 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 between R5- and R6-billion in capital and when mature, to carry around 100 000 weekday passengers.
• The Department of Transport will not allow any grant spending on other phases until the city 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 City has not been forthcoming regarding council contributions, but the Department of Transport estimates it at around R40- to R50-million a year in question.
• The Harambee project needs to be professionalised and be run viably. After appealing for this for over two years, the Department of Transport has now given the City until the end of 2019/20 to completely zero base all costs and rescale 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.
• Despite two years of Department of Transport appeals, the City has proven incapable of correcting this. Hence, a final warning has been communicated to the city project team in March and they have six months to rebalance costs and revenues and move to viability.
Waters said: “The mayor, in his State of the City address, stated the first phase of the BRT was “up and running”, which it is not. And the metro is nowhere near expanding the services as they cannot even get the first phase implemented properly.”
On behalf of the metro, Gadebe said:
• The CoE introduced the starter service as a pilot phase with the intention to expand the services with added buses. The expansion of the service was planned for 40 buses and subsequently 80 buses in 2019.
• The City remains committed to its plan to operate at least 40 buses during the 2019 calendar year.
• Phase one (Tembisa to Vosloorus), when fully operational, is anticipated to complete more than 100 000 weekday passenger trips. The figure is based on the travel demand model and the household travel surveys conducted.
• The City has acknowledged the high costs on 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 City with the next stage of phase one been planned with reduced infrastructure. This will enable earlier implementation of future phases.
• The Harambee system is already operational and gaining traction, with commitments in place, such as the procurement of buses; therefore, a zero-based budget approach will be detrimental to the project at this stage.
• The City is not aware of a final warning issued; however, action plans are in place and being implemented to ensure achievement of set milestones as submitted and presented to Department of Transport.
