The planned R12-billion monorail between Johannesburg and Soweto was a first step in addressing the daily traffic chaos on South African roads, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) said on Friday.
It was surprised that Transport Minister Jeff Radebe opposed the move, said FF+ transport spokesperson Corne Mulder.
”The current road infrastructure in South Africa is insufficient to deal with the annual increase in motor vehicles on our roads,” he said.
”Daily, millions of working hours are lost because workers are caught up in traffic jams and peak hours in the mornings and evenings.
”Minister Radebe’s focus should be on preventing the loss of working hours and accompanying economic losses. Rather than to side with taxi-operators who will no longer have a monopoly on transport between Soweto and Johannesburg, the minister should thoroughly investigate the option of a monorail and welcome it,” Mulder said.
Radebe said earlier this week that the first he learned of the monorail was in the media.
Accusing the Gauteng government of not consulting, discussing or seeking the national transport department’s approval for the project, Radebe said it went counter to the Cabinet-approved National Rail Plan.
The project has also met with the criticism of, among others, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Unions and taxi operators.
”We can no longer afford that the African National Congress’s obsession with taxi-associations continues to impair further growth and modernisation of our economy,” said Mulder.
”It is high time that South Africa builds monorails between the business centres and the big residential concentrations in all the large cities.
”Cape Town specifically should be next in line to get such a monorail,” he said,
On May 16, Gauteng Finance and Economic Affairs minister Paul Mashatile and Public Transport Road and Works minister Ignatius Jacobs signed a deal with a Malaysian consortium to build the 44,7km monorail.
”By 2009, no one from Soweto should have to wait more than 15 minutes for transport,” said Mashatile.
The FF+ called on Radebe to urgently look at other world cities where monorails had been built and were being successfully operated. – Sapa