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The DA in the Western Cape will be writing to the National Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, regarding the President’s announcement of the development of a Transnet Roadmap that will see the restructuring of the Transnet Freight Rail to create a separate Infrastructure Manager by October 2023.

This is indeed a big commitment by the ANC National Government, considering its continued failure to protect and maintain rail and public transport infrastructure over the years. We, therefore, seek to ascertain how this Roadmap will impact freight rail in the Western Cape, especially as it relates to the Port of Cape Town, and whether provincial transport and economic authorities will be consulted during the development phase of this Roadmap.

The President’s announcement follows Minister Mbalula’s promise earlier this week that Cape Town’s passenger rail will be fully functioning by the end of the year. However, we have heard this story before as Mbalula has made a number of promises in the past year, one of which was the reopening of the Central Line from Cape Town to Khayelitsha by December 2022, this has yet to happen.

The South African passenger and freight rail network has all but collapsed under ANC governance and a new Infrastructure Manager will do very little to change things if cadre deployment, political mismanagement, poor governance and corruption continue unabated.

The DA believes that the only rational approach to resolving the rail crisis is through a new model for rail management that will localise and transfer the responsibility thereof to capable sub-national governments.

Issued by Ricardo Mackenzie, MPP - DA Western Cape Spokesperson on Transport