- The mayor of Cape Town Geordin Hill-Lewis has been asking the minister of transport to devolve accountability for commuter rail from nationwide authorities to town.
- But Minister Fikile Mbalula has ignored Mayor Hill-Lewis’s correspondence.
- The legislation gives for commuter rail to be devolved to municipal degree. So commuter activist group #UniteBehind has threatened to launch litigation if Mbalula fails to make progress.
Commuter activist group #UniteBehind says it is going to launch litigation within the new 12 months to compel the minister of transport to hasten the native management of commuter rail to municipalities or provincial governments, also referred to as devolution, if they don’t see concrete progress.
Director of #UniteBehind Zackie Achmat instructed GroundUp that the case will likely be towards the minister and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and can cite the City of Cape Town.
Devolution of rail has lengthy been authorities coverage, however to-date there was little progress or coordination to obtain this, both by nationwide authorities or from municipalities.
According to the National Land Transport Act of 2009 (NLTA), commuter rail needs to be situated “in the appropriate sphere of government”.
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The City of Cape Town seems to be prepared to declare its obligations for commuter rail. On 13 December, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis launched a press release, which argued that the persistently poor efficiency of Prasa “confirms the urgency for rail devolution”.
Hill-Lewis mentioned that there is no hope of the nationwide authorities turning round passenger rail and so they want to begin planning for the handover course of directly.
He mentioned that town was shifting forward with finishing its Rail Feasibility Study, a mandatory first step earlier than devolution may be carried out, however that town required “access to all institutional, financial and technical information associated with operating the current rail system in Cape Town” from Prasa.
Correspondence from town to Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula reveals that town has been making an attempt to push forward with devolution. On 23 May, Hill-Lewis wrote to Mbalula to suggest establishing a working committee composed of metropolis and Department of Transport officers to talk about how commuter rail may very well be devolved to town, in step with the National Rail Policy that Mbalula had gazetted earlier this 12 months.
No reply was obtained.
Then on 18 August, Hill-Lewis wrote to Mbalula, saying that town had begun a feasibility examine into the devolution and project of rail on 1 July 2022, and {that a} conceptual report was due on the finish of September.
Hill-Lewis requested a gathering and requested for data that town might use to inform their plans to take over commuter rail from Prasa. Once once more, no reply.
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On 1 December, Hill-Lewis wrote an additional follow-up letter to Mbalula, noting that the minister had not replied to both of his previous letters, and but once more requested to meet with the minister to talk about the devolution of rail to the municipal authorities.
In May this 12 months, the Department of Transport launched its National Rail Policy White Paper, which “acknowledges the importance of devolving public transport functions to the lowest level of government”. But simply days earlier than, on 28 April, Mbalula appeared to pour chilly water on hastening devolution, tweeting: “Any suggestions that the Minister of Finance has given a green light for commuter rail takeover by the City of Cape Town is inaccurate. Only the Minister of Transport can assign a public transport function to another sphere of government.”
The #UniteBehind grouping has been calling for the devolution of commuter rail since 2017 and has been writing to the City of Cape Town since 2020, arguing that it should be pursued proactively.
In a letter to Hill-Lewis in June this 12 months, Achmat wrote that the NLTA locations the accountability for built-in land transport with native authorities, particularly metropolitan municipalities.
But there was little coordination to obtain this.
A 2014 submission from the Financial and Fiscal Commission to the City of Cape Town mentioned that the “municipality [the City of Cape Town] cannot fully achieve all these functions [described in the NLTA] without also having control over rail”.
Metrorail throughout the nation is in disarray but Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula has taken no steps to devolve accountability for commuter rail to municipalities. Image: Ashraf Hendricks, GroundUp archives
In 2015, Prasa and the City of Cape Town signed a memorandum of motion from which little or no motion flowed, which acknowledged that there was, at that stage, “a strong push from national government … for the devolution of rail to the metros.”
In 2017, town’s transport authority, then beneath Brett Herron, revealed the Business Plan for the Assignment of Urban Rail, which offered the metro’s transport authority’s case for devolving rail and beginning the project course of instantly. But, once more, regardless of there being a transparent disaster in commuter rail (after which not but wherever close to its lowest level), there was no motion.
But Hill-Lewis’s newest assertion means that town is prepared to forge forward with assuming accountability for commuter rail.
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In a 12 December letter to #UniteBehind, Neil Slingers, town’s director of transport planning and community administration, mentioned that town will develop a service degree plan for rail “on a corridor basis”, when it comes to the NLTA, along with Prasa.
Slingers writes that town intends to have “urban rail devolved from the National Department of Transport”.
According to #UniteBehind, in a 22 September 2022 letter to town, a service degree plan is “the enforcement mechanism that ensures control, monitoring and oversight over Prasa. A properly drafted and implemented service level plan will give effect to the city’s constitutional duty.”
“The City of Cape Town has control over the safety of commuters – it has been the law since 2009 but has never been applied. The step by the mayor and city is critical and starts a new path. Now, the city has committed to immediately start with the drafting of a service level plan in consultation with Prasa as required by law,” Achmat instructed GroundUp.
“Mbalula will go to Luthuli House after his election as ANC Secretary-General. Now is the chance for President Cyril Ramaphosa to appoint a Minister of Transport with substance.”
“Will the Minister instruct Prasa to enter into service level plans with all municipalities and the Gauteng government without delay?” Achmat requested.
We have no idea, as a result of we despatched detailed questions to the Department of Transport, and simply as with the mayor of Cape Town, we additionally obtained no reply.