Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa at the weekend announced that the Bombela Consortium has been appointed as the preferred bidder for the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link.
Shareholding in the Bombela Consortium are listed Canadian group Bombardier (25%), French construction firm Bouygues (25%), listed South African construction group Murray & Roberts (25%), Loliwe Rail Contractors (16,5%) and Loliwe Rail Express (8,5%).
The Bombela Consortium is a partnership between Bombardier Transportation, Bouygues Travaux Publics, Murray & Roberts, South Africa’s Loliwe companies and RATP Développement. Bombela is 50% owned by its international partners and 50% by Murray & Roberts and the Loliwe companies.
The Loliwe companies represent the consortium’s black economic empowerment partner.
The civil works will be undertaken by French construction group Bouygues Construction, Murray & Roberts and Loliwe Rail Contractors and will take four to five years. It will include construction of 10 stations (three of which are underground), 20km of tunnel sections, 9km of viaducts and bridges, and 10-million cubic metres of earthworks.
Bombardier Transportation and Loliwe Rail Express will be responsible for delivering the rolling stock with final assembly in South Africa.
Operation and maintenance of the system will be carried out for 15 years by RATP Développement in association with its South African partners, through a local operating company.
The project will be implemented as a public private partnership (PPP) and includes the design, construction, operation and maintenance as well as financing of the complete system.
The Gautrain will be transferred back to the Gauteng provincial government at the end of a concession period. The concession period consists of a four-and-a-half-year construction period followed by a 15-year operating period.
“By announcing the preferred bidder for the Gautrain project, we as the Gauteng provincial government are joining hands with the private sector in the biggest PPP project yet tackled in the country and indeed in Africa,” Shilowa said.
“The Gautrain project is one of the largest and probably most exciting transportation projects in South Africa today. This project will play an important role in stimulating economic growth, in relieving traffic congestion, in promoting public transport, tourism and public private partnerships and in changing the culture of public transport usage in South Africa.
“Above all, it will be responsible for creating 148 000 jobs,” he added.
Reflecting on the broad-based black economic empowerment and development of small, medium and micro enterprises proposed by the preferred bidder, Shilowa said: “We as the Gauteng provincial government believe that these proposals will become benchmarks for future PPP projects in South Africa. Socio-economic development targets were set and I am delighted to say that in most cases these targets were exceeded.”
Now that the preferred bidder has been announced, the final route proclamation process will start with the publishing of the land required for the project in a preliminary design report, followed by the actual proclamation.
During this process, the final surveying and valuation of the land will be done so that the expropriation can start after the proclamation.
The announcement of the preferred bidder is only a milestone towards financial closure and it does not conclude the procurement process.
The tender process for a PPP project comprises a request for prequalification, request for proposal I and II, a best-and-final-offer phase and then negotiations for financial closure and the signing of the concession contract.
Gauteng minister for finance and economic affairs Paul Mashatile said it would be premature to announce any cost as this would seriously jeopardise the next phase of the procurement process.
“I would like to emphasise, however, that the final contract amount will be within the affordability limit as set out by Treasury Authorisation 1,” he said.
After the concession contract has been finalised, construction will start. The construction period allowed for is 54 months, which means that the project will be completed a few months before the Fifa Soccer World Cup in 2010. — I-Net Bridge