The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) says not enough public consultation was done by the South African National Road Agency. Do you think there was enough community consultation?
Nazir Alli: We have had a process of wide-ranging consultation and public participation. We firmly believe that we have had enough public participation. I think it is totally mischievous of Wessa to turn around and say there is not sufficient consultation that has taken place.
There is always a question of what is sufficient consultation. We have had more than 3 400 interested and affected parties on our register. We have held more than 100 focus-group meetings. We met kings and traditional leaders in the area personally to discuss the road with them. We consulted in-depth with the [provincial ministers] of the area.
I think we need to emphasise that we did not just use English in consulting communities. The literature we dished out and our meetings were also done in isiZulu and isiXhosa. We also understand that literacy is a problem in the area, thus we made use of pictures.
There is no way that we’ll be able to satisfy everybody all the time with consultation. But our process took nearly two years. For how long does consultation have to take place?
You are still waiting for the final decision from Valli Moosa, so the road might not take place. Activists campaigning against the road have accused you of moving in before the entire process was complete. Do you think you acted prematurely?
That is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. There is no construction taking place, if that is what is meant by us moving in. We have not put out the tenders yet, how can construction begin to take place?
We have done aerial photography and surveys. We have done biophysical studies for the biosphere centre to go and see what plants grow there. We have taken an audit of what it is that we are going to affect — people, plants, animals and the environment as a whole. How else can you do a proper investigation to determine the effects the road will have?
Our division has done specialist studies in terms of fauna and flora. These studies need to be done for the protection of the environment. If it wasn’t for the specialist studies that we carried out under this project, our knowledge base will not have increased in respect of the extent of the biosphere. If nothing else, we have contributed to the pool of knowledge.
Accusations have been levelled against your department that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) was not done properly and that the company contracted to do the EIA left gaping holes in the study. Was the company totally impartial in compiling the report?
The EIA we have done is totally impartial. We got totally independent experts to do the EIA. But remember, Wessa themselves are not impartial. They also have a particular view they are proposing. And we have our view that we are marketing.
That is why we got experts outside the National Roads Agency to do the studies and develop a view. These guys have a reputation to protect. It is very important to them to be above board. Like us they have got their integrity to protect.
Critics say the toll road will kill the economies of the small towns on the present R61, the current road that links KwaZulu-Natal’s South Coast to Umtata. Why did you not simply upgrade the R61?
The R61 in terms of alignment is not conducive to easy access and efficient transport. What do we want to achieve with this particular project? Do we only want mobility, or do we need mobility and access? The R61, even if upgraded, will not provide both. The R61 does not serve economic and social purposes. The new road will serve both.
You also have to consider safety, and a big national highway cutting through your town raises safety concerns for the inhabitants. These days every town with a big road passing through it is starting to clamour for a bypass. Now once you have a bypass going through there, people passing through will avoid the town anyway.
We need to find a balance in terms of providing mobility and providing local access. The new N2 will deliver on that. We do not necessarily provide the same amount of local access as the R61 because the R61 is meant to be regional road. It is what we call an arterial. It is not meant to be the highway linking cities.
How does the development of this area weigh against the impact the road will have on the environment?
If you look at the affected area in the pristine area, we are only going to affect 0,16% of that total area. Thus it is a very small portion of the environment in terms of the green area that is going to be affected. I do not think this fact has been put into the public domain.
Once you start to find the balance between what you are actually disturbing and the benefits that you are going to bring in, the disturbance is minimal. We are not saying that there is no disturbance. In any kind of development there will always be some form of disturbance. But you need to measure that against the benefits the project will bring to the people.
What benefits will the new N2 bring to the Eastern Cape communities it will affect?
First there are environmental benefits. The road is a huge opportunity to have planned development, planned land use and contributing to saving rare plants species. The project will accelerate the establishment of the Pondoland park. It will demarcate the area and borders of the park, and help to bring ecotourists to the area. If ecotourism is to survive in the area, you need tourists contributing to the economy.
If you look at the present situation in the Pondoland area, you will find heaps of overgrazing and masses of environmental degradation. Illegal cottages are rampant. The development at present in that area is happening in a haphazard manner. You cannot ignore that. The N2 will help to change this.
It will also increase our ability to look after the plants because we will be much better equipped to identify the plants and to safeguard them with the necessary infrastructure. We are busy with plans to establish a new botanical garden in Pondoland, which will be run by the local people, similar to other projects we have done in the country. There are a number of examples where we have achieved this very successfully and created sustainable jobs.
Critics have said the road will not have the desired economic impact on the region. What are the economic benefits the road will bring to local inhabitants?
The project will sustain growth in the economy of the Eastern Cape, one of the poorest regions in the country. The benefit to the local population will be about R230-million. We will create 15 000 jobs with this project through positive investment.
In addition to that there is going to be a recurring income for non-road users of R1,7-billion. That calculates to about R65- to R70-million a year. We will do international bidding to attract foreign investment. The investment in Pondoland is not ‘hot money†where investors pull out at the first sign of trouble. The investors will be here for the duration.
If this project fails, millions of rands worth of development and a better way of life for the people of the area will be lost.
Critics say the road will disturb the traditional way of life of the people in the area. Have you looked at the impact the road will have on the lives of the locals?
People make sweeping statements that the project is going to disturb the traditional life of people in that area. Statements like that really concern me. The critics are saying we should confine the Pondoland people to a life of poverty. There is no dignity in poverty. It is easy for people in fancy suburbs in fancy towns who go and visit the area in their 4x4s to turn around and say we are going to disturb the Pondos traditional way of life. The traditional life of those people is one of subsistence farming and poverty.
We have an obligation, a duty, to make sure we create the opportunities to attack poverty in the whole of our country. And that is what we are doing with this N2 project. Guys who turn around and make statements like that do not really know what poverty is. They think there is a kind of romanticism attached to poverty. But there is no dignity and romanticism in poverty.
We should not get sanctimonious about traditional life when there is so much poverty in our country.
What programmes have you put in place to ensure that the environment will not be damaged during construction?
First of all we have got an environmental management programme [EMP]. Our EMP will be implemented and monitored independently. In terms of our contract documentation we will write in some very stiff specifications and extremely stiff penalties will be handed down to the constructors for non- compliance. We will demarcate areas where, for instance, people cannot work and other areas where parking will not be allowed.
We want to categorically state that the monitoring we will carry out will be benchmarked against international best practices. We have an environmental policy in our department and we will ensure that we are compliant with it. –