CAPE TOWN - Plans to introduce third-party operators and competition in the rail sector were announced in Parliament on Friday, a move the City of Cape Town (CoCT) says is too little too late but most welcome’.
The announcement to introduce reforms in South Africa’s rail sector was made by from Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
Godongwana revealed structural reforms in the economy – such as 100MW of power to be generated by private business and third party operators in the rail sector – to stimulate economic growth, IOL reported earlier.
The latest statistics illustrate the country’s unemployment level has reached its highest at 34.9%, with the economy contracting by 1.5%.
CoCT says it has welcomed the announcement by the finance minister on rail sector reforms even though it “is sadly too little and almost possibly too late”.
“For the past five years, the City of Cape Town has been appealing to the National Minister of Transport for the necessary permissions that will allow us to begin a process of taking over passenger rail from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa).
“Approximately 570 000 passenger trips per day have either moved from passenger rail to road-based transport modes, or, these passengers are no longer economically active,” the City says.
“Capetonians have deserted the trains because the service is unreliable, unpredictable and unsafe. This shift has resulted in congested roads and longer travelling times and higher costs for commuters.”
The loss to the local economy, due to the impact on productivity, has also been pointed out.
“Cape Town is ready to ensure that our residents have access to a reliable and affordable, efficient passenger rail service and we have been trying to make this happen for several years now,” CoCT adds.
Western Cape has the highest percentage of passenger rail commuters by household members in the country, according to the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) by Stats SA, reported in March 2021.
“Trains were the mode of travel that was least used by household members, except for Western Cape (1.6%) and Gauteng (1.5%), where more than one per cent of household members used this mode of transport,” NHTS said.
IOL