The fallout from the Gauteng government’s billion-rand monorail, which will connect Soweto to the Johannesburg CBD, continued to grow this week.
While Transport Minister Jeff Radebe and sources close to the Jo’burg metro council claim to be in the dark about the project, it has emerged that talks are already in the advanced stages with German consortia for similar monorails in the Tshwane and Ekurhuleni municipalities.
Gauteng Transport Minister Ignatius Jacobs confirmed that negotiations for the two further monorails were in advanced stages and disputed the allegation that the Johannesburg metro and national transport department had not been consulted. He said presentations were conducted for both arms of government earlier this year and declined to provide more details.
This version of events was supported by Jeyakumar Varathan, the CEO of Malaysian consortium Newcyc Vision, tasked with building and running the Soweto/Jo’burg CBD monorail.
“Before the announcement we had already spoken to the Johannesburg city and the national department of transport,” he said.
The Malaysian company has built similar monorails in Malaysia, Hong Kong, India and Sri Lanka. It will fully fund the project, meaning it represents a foreign investment of R12-billion.
But Keith Khoza, the CEO of the Gauteng Economic Development Agency, contradicted this by saying provincial government had wanted to wait for the project to be approved before discussing it with the Jo’burg metro.
Jacobs and Gauteng Finance Minister Paul Mashatile announced last week that the province had approved a proposal by a Malaysian consortium to build a 44,7km and 39-station monorail that would link Soweto to the centre of Johannesburg. The proposed monorail, which is scheduled to be online in 2009, is projected to carry more than 1,5-million commuters a day for a one-way trip costing R10.
However, the announcement has thrown the Jo’burg Metro into a state of crisis, as it tries to figure out what the monorail means for its Rapid Bus Transport System (BRT) that would have serviced the same corridor between Soweto and Jo’burg and is also scheduled to be online in 2009. The BRT will create special lanes for buses for high-speed access between Soweto and the city centre.
Sources close to the metro claim that it was never informed about the monorail project and that the announcement had placed it in a “tricky situation”, creating “difficulties” with ongoing negotiations between taxi organisations that were going to be included in the BRT system.
Radebe also claimed ignorance when addressing Parliament this week, stating that he “did not know anything about this proposal until it was announced in the media”.
“The Gauteng province did not consult, nor discuss, nor seek approval for this proposal with my ministry or department,” said Radebe.
Keith Allen, a former adviser to the Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi, and a current local government consultant, says it is “outrageous” that the provincial government would consider building such a huge project without consulting the city. “Consultation is critical to government functioning properly,” said Allen.
Sicelo Mabaso, the chairperson of the taxi owners’ organisation Top Six said the announcement of the monorail project had taken it by surprise. He said that negotiations between the Jo’burg metro and the taxi organisations had been going well because the city wants the taxi industry to get involved in the new BRT system.
He says the announcement could threaten these negotiations because the monorail was conflicting with the BRT system and the provincial government wanted to bring in outside companies to build and operate the monorail. “The city is part of government,” says Mabaso. “They are supposed to be working together.”
Radebe said the project proposal disregarded the Cabinet-approved National Rail Plan. “As recent as … May 7, I met [Jo’burg] mayor Amos Masondo and members of the mayoral council … to discuss in detail public transport. Throughout our meeting, the monorail proposal was not discussed,” he said.
Rail projects were defined by legislation as a national competence. “Proposals for rail are made through the Municipal Integrated Transport Plan to the national minister of transport.”
However, Jacobs is adamant that a team including staff from his department and members of the consortium had made presentations to the Jo’burg metro and to the national department of transport earlier this year.
Radebe told Parliament that the monorail would duplicate transport infrastructure because the main corridor of the Rea Vaya BRT system was the Lenasia to Soweto to Parktown corridor, which is the same area for which the monorail was being proposed.
Jacobs told the Mail & Guardian this week that there were no issues around duplicating transport infrastructure, because the monorail would only provide commuters with more choice. “All over the world different systems co-exist,” said Jacobs. “No one can cope with the south corridor at the moment, people stand for hours waiting, which is unacceptable.
“So you have buses, Metrorail, taxis and monorail, let the people choose,” said Jacobs.
“A road problem can not be overcome using the road,” said Varathan. “The Soweto corridor is our pilot project; we want to do it properly and then open our doors for other corridors.”
Khoza says that rail-based transport is the preferred option because it can carry high volumes and doesn’t use the road network.
Varathan confirmed Jacobs’s version of events, stating that Newcyc Vision and the Gauteng transport department had made presentations to both the national transport department and Johannesburg council.
Khoza contradicted Jacobs by telling the M&G that they had not had discussions with the Johannesburg Metro about the monorail. “We were quite careful not to open up to many discussions before there was approval for the project,” said Khoza. “The idea was to wait for approval and then there would be discussions with the Johannesburg Metro about their plans.”
“We are convinced that this system can work and we will continue with consulting our colleagues at the national and local government levels,” said Jacobs.