KWAZULU-NATAL DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT BUDGET SPEECH 2004/2005

26 July 2004

Presented to KwaZulu-Natal Legislature by Honourable MEC for Transport, Mr Bheki Cele

Mr Speaker
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature
Members of the Transport Portfolio Committee
Distinguished Guests
Members of the Media
Fellow Citizens

INTRODUCTION

Today marks an historic moment in my life, it is the very first time that I address the House as the MEC for Transport. It is indeed the very first time that I present the budget speech for this department. I accept the challenge, Ngiyayivuma inselelo. I am indeed deeply honoured and humbled by the vote of confidence bestowed unto me. I had the privilege of serving as a member of the portfolio committee on Transport amongst others, and for that Im grateful. I look forward to a close working relationship with this committee under the leadership of Mr O. Singh.

Our Honourable Premier, Mr S’bu Ndebele, set a budget speech tradition during his ten year tenure as the MEC for Transport in KwaZulu-Natal. Firstly, he consistently and persistently reminded this House that the transport budget was inadequate to meet the mobility needs of the KwaZulu-Natal public. Secondly, he consistently and persistently emphasised the viewpoint that the provision of road and transport infrastructure could be designed to build an important platform to advance black economic empowerment objectives and to create the necessary condition for communities isolated through apartheid planning to realise their true development potential. I wish to congratulate the former MEC for Transport for the outstanding work he did during his tenure. Iyabonakala imisebenzi yakho MaNzankosi.

The budget I present today puts across a very strong message, it is a budget geared towards defending the weak. Honourable members and distinguished guests, each programme is precisely intended to achieve this end. How do we as the department of Transport ensure that the roads we build benefit the poorest communities? How do we ensure that the roads we build are means of access to economic resources? How do we at Transport ensure that the public transport we manage is user friendly, accessible, safe, affordable and ultimately of benefit to the women and menfolk of not only Durban North, UMlazi, but also to the men and women at uMsinga, oPhongolo, eNhlazatshe? How do we at Transport ensure that we integrate our road planning network such that communities in the deep rural areas have access to schools, clinics, hospitals?

The bigger question honourable members and distinguished guests is how do we ensure that the budget we present today defends the weakest thus contributing to redressing the imbalance of the past particularly, alleviating poverty.

Mr Speaker

I recently completed a tour of our regions during which I became more and more convinced that indeed we have done a bit at Transport about the plight of the poor but more still needs to be done to defend the weak in this province. In my tenure as the MEC of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport we will continue to pioneer the work done over the past decade of defending the weakest in our society by empowering them to participate in Government and in our market economy. A common thread in my budget speech today is that it is unashamedly pro-poor with the upfront intention of bridging the gap – indeed chasm – between our first and second economies.

I must therefore place on record that the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport’s budget for 2004/2005 and the projected MTEF period is certainly inadequate to secure a balanced road network which will meet the mobility needs of all citizens within reasonable timeframes.

Our challenge is to build a People’s Contract for a sustainable transport system that takes full cognisance of the fact that we are the Gateway Province to South Africa’s international trade. It cannot be over emphasised that KwaZulu-Natal has the two busiest ports in the country, namely Durban and Richards Bay, which together handle some 75% of South Africa’s cargo tonnage and account for 80% of the value of South Africa’s imports and exports. Richards Bay concentrates on bulk commodities while the port of Durban predominantly handles container traffic and accounts for some 60% of South Africa’s container tonnage.

The KwaZulu-Natal road and rail network is critical towards achieving the national objective of developing an efficient and seamless freight transport system that promotes rather than undermines our economic performance. We dare not risk the collapse of our critical transport corridors due to under budgeting. At the same time we must necessarily budget for the development of new transport corridors which will provide access for resource poor communities and expose them to new investments. This the Department is currently doing through its Community Access Roads and African Renaissance Road Upgrading Programmes. However, we need to be very clear on the fact that our current budgets are inadequate to cope with the historical disinvestment in transport infrastructure during the last decades of apartheid as well as the spatial legacy of separate development planning.

It is also common cause that during his tenure as MEC for Transport, Premier Ndebele championed the right of poor people to share in the economy of KwaZulu-Natal. It is now my intention to consolidate the many gains that have already been made by programmes such as Zibambele, Vukuzakhe and public transport subsidies to create work and enterprise development opportunities for poor and vulnerable KwaZulu-Natal citizens. It is also my intention to build on our solid platform of empowerment programmes and prepare for an exponential growth in the construction and transport sectors through the development of major infrastructure projects such as the Dube Trade Port and the upgrading of the Gauteng / KwaZulu-Natal transport corridor as well as the infrastructure investments associated with the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Indeed, I am pleased to inform you that my Department is working closely with eThekwini Municipality in planning their "rural road network". eThekwini Municipality has committed significant budgets to upgrade and develop its rural road network and has already adopted our Zibambele and Vukuzakhe programmes.

It is our intention to launch the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) for KwaZulu-Natal in September 2004. My department and the eThekwini Municipality are currently working on a joint programme that will ensure the co-ordinated role out of the EPWP to, and with, all relevant stakeholders.

I, therefore, expect my Department to accelerate progress towards the objective of the economic empowerment of ordinary citizens, especially the rural poor and its women and youth. With an ANC led government in KwaZulu-Natal, which is fully aligned to national government’s development agenda, I cannot see any possible impediments to achieving our objectives.

Mr Speaker, I will now introduce the budget for Vote 12 on a programme by programme basis.

Budget: R108 380 000 O R R1,08 million

The development goal of Administration is to provide the KwaZulu-Natal public with a professional and user friendly service which is consultative and free of corruption and fraud.

The Administration Programme provides support services, within the Department, such as human resource management, labour relations, financial and administrative services, procurement, maintenance and repairs of all buildings, management of the provincial motor fleet, the processing and administration of traffic fines, registration and licensing of motor vehicles and professional services to my ministry.

I am acutely mindful of the need to develop an integrated human resource development strategy which effectively aligns the demand and supply factors of the skills required in the transport, construction and civil engineering sectors. This Human Resource Development Strategy must necessarily be gender affirmative and I expect a commitment from my senior management to accelerate the recruitment and promotion of women into management positions in my department. This will receive priority attention as will the commitment towards a targeted "Youth Empowerment Programme" that focuses on providing practical and experiential training for S3 students as well as accommodating learnerships. Here I would like to set my department a challenge and a target.

If we are to make any real impact on the numbers of young S3 students who cannot find suitable placements to complete their practical and experiential training requirements then we must be prepared to set ourselves the difficult target of providing a minimum of one hundred and fifty (150) placement opportunities per annum.

Further we must develop a comprehensive and systematic programme for accommodating learnerships. This programme must target the creation of learnership opportunities both within our own establishment and with our business partners. I expect to receive such a programme and business plan by the end of September 2004.

We expect during this financial year to collect R550 million in revenue, mainly from licenses.

Budget: R1 383 849 000 R 1, 38 billion

Our mandated development goal is to construct and maintain a balanced road network that meets the mobility needs of all KwaZulu-Natal’s citizens and which supports our national and provincial growth and development objectives.

The Road Infrastructure budget accounts for some 75% of our overall budget. Significant progress has been made towards the establishment of project management systems and outcomes based planning with clear performance based indices which can be monitored.

The budget allocations for road infrastructure strike a balance between the need to maintain existing infrastructure and the need to develop new strategic corridors and provide communities with access roads. The budget allocated towards maintenance is R648 061 000 million while the budget allocated towards construction is R641 327 000 million.

I am particularly pleased to announce that our African Renaissance Road Upgrading Programme (ARRUP) budget will increase to R200 million. This programme succinctly captures the positive contribution that road construction can make towards kick-starting stagnant rural economies and towards the renewal of rural communities, particularly small towns. The programme makes extensive use of local labour and local suppliers and allocates 70% of its overall budget towards black economic empowerment. Improved local earnings have resulted in a discernable improvement to the lives of beneficiary communities on all ARRUP projects.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that my Department is working closely with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs on all ARRUP projects to maximise new agricultural developments that are now possible because of improved access to markets and services. The development of local water resources, that in the short term will supply the water demands in road construction but in the medium to long term will supply the irrigation demands of newly developed fields, is receiving priority attention. There can be little doubt that ARRUP has lifted co-operative governance between provincial and local government to new heights and that beneficiary communities are the winners.

A further R114 500 000 million has been allocated to provide communities with local road access to public facilities such as clinics, hospitals, schools and transport networks. This financial year we have allocated an additional R30 million to our Roads for Rural Development programme to specifically upgrade agricultural roads and a further R25 million which will be dedicated to labour intensive road construction projects which will employ women and youth.

I would like to use this opportunity to point out that there are several distinct components within the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport’s labour absorptive programmes which have been designed to specifically target those sectors of the rural community that are considered to be most vulnerable. These form part of our Road to Wealth and Job Creation Initiative which was first tabled at the Job Summit in October 1998. Our labour absorptive programmes are all planned within the broader context of community empowerment, the development of a balanced road network and the normalisation of the civil engineering and road construction industries in KwaZulu-Natal.

Perhaps our best know programme is Zibambele which won the Impumelelo Innovations Award as the "most innovative programme focussed on the reduction of poverty and the improvement of the quality of life of the poor" and which was recently identified by President Mbeki in his Address to the National Council of Provinces as a clear example of best practice and a programme that should be rolled out throughout South Africa.

Zibambele is a form of labour intensive road maintenance in which a household is contracted to maintain a specific length of road. The length of road allocated to each Zibambele household is determined by a maximum of 60 hours per month of work needed to maintain the road. This allows the Zibambele household to deploy labour on other economic fronts.

Zibambele focuses on women headed households with more than 95% of all contracts being awarded to them. A contract is awarded with equipment which includes a wheelbarrow, a pick, a shovel, a machete and a slasher.

The Department has set a target of 40 000 Zibambele contracts. We have planned to achieve this target by 2009 and, this financial year, have budgeted for 24 000 Zibambele contracts. The fact that Zibambele contractors receive regular monthly payments and the fact that contracts are renewable on an annual basis has stabilised the poverty of destitute households in KwaZulu-Natal. Last year we embarked on the ambitious task of organising all Zibambele contractors into savings clubs. I am proud to report the successful completion of this. It is now our intention to provide support services and training to Zibambele savings clubs which, we believe, will assist in breaking poverty cycles. The support and co-operation of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs will prove critical in achieving this objective. To date Zibambele savings clubs have collectively saved in excess of R1 million.

We have recently piloted two labour absorptive road construction programmes which are designed to specifically target sectors of the rural population that are at risk and vulnerable. The one method is a task based labour intensive road construction programme which targets women for employment. Our pilot programme indicates that we can unbundle road construction to create 3 400 tasks which are required to complete 1 kilometre of road. The second method is a labour based road construction programme that recruits, trains and mentors youth. Our pilot programme indicates that we can create some 12 job opportunities for skilled workers and 194 job opportunities for unskilled workers, over a period of six months, for every 5 kilometres of road constructed under this method.

A total of fourteen projects, utilising such labour absorptive methods, will be initiated this year. These projects will also create on site experiential training for forty two S3 students. Civil engineering and survey students studying for their National Diploma at South African Technikons are required to undergo a mandatory twelve month period of practical training at the end of their third year of study before they can proceed to their fourth and final year of study. The practical training component is to expose students to a working environment that will prepare them for the labour market. The number of S3 students who cannot find a suitable placing, and who therefore cannot complete their qualifications, is a growing characteristic of the unemployed youth in KwaZulu-Natal. Our Technikons in KwaZulu-Natal report that as many as 170 youth with S3 qualifications cannot find suitable placements and therefore cannot complete their diplomas annually. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport believes that the placing of S3 students is critical both for the normalisation of the road construction industry in the province and for the growth and development of the emerging contractor sector. We are doing something about this anomaly and we intend to do more.

Finally, although our Vukuzakhe programme is a staged advancement emerging contractor development programme, it also focuses on labour absorptive road construction and road maintenance methodologies. This year we anticipate awarding Vukuzakhe contracts in excess of R400 million. We have established Vukuzakhe Associations throughout KwaZulu-Natal and these associations have elected a Vukuzakhe Provincial Council. We will soon meet with the Vukuzakhe Provincial Council and Vukuzakhe Associations to jointly develop a support programme that will ensure that Vukuzakhe contractors do emerge and enter the market place as successful and competitive contractors. To this end the Department is in the advanced stage of investigating the implementation of a Public / Private Partnership (PPP) for the supply and maintenance of major plant (graders, bulldozers, etc.) to both the Department and the Vukuzakhe emerging contractors. The PPP is aimed at alleviating the problems faced by emerging contractors in obtaining access to affordable and reliable plant. This affects their performance, profit margins and credit worthiness.

Budget: R30 969 000 million plus R423 050 000 million (Bus Subsidies)

Our mandated development goal is to regulate public transport and to ensure public access to safe, efficient and affordable modes of transport.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport will receive an additional budget of R423 050 000 million this financial year to implement bus subsidies on an agency basis on behalf of the National Department of Transport. This amount is not voted on by this Legislature.

In his budget speech our National Minister of Transport, Minister Jeff Radebe, indicated that his department would complete a comprehensive review of the public transport system – including the subsidy system – by September 2004. He indicated that, in the meantime, targeted procurement objectives had been set concerning all contracted services of public transport. These are:

• a minimum of 30% of all contracted services set aside for companies with a 50% HDI equity
• the remaining 70% of contracted services to be awarded to companies with a 35% HDI equity

The objective of targeted procurement is to facilitate black entry into the public transport sector and my Department will comply therewith.

The KwaZulu-Natal Taxi Council (KWANATACO) was registered as a public entity in November 2002 in compliance with the Public Finance Management Act. We have approved their business plan with a budget of R5,6 million this financial year. It is important to note that government’s taxi recapitalisation programme is on track and that Minister Radebe has indicated that final recommendations will be made before the end of August 2004. Indeed, I believe that his department has beaten their deadline and has already submitted its recommendations to Cabinet.

Here I would also like to record that we are making significant progress towards normalizing the taxi industry in KwaZulu-Natal. Indeed it is precisely for this reason that the portfolios of Transport and Safety and Security were combined under a single ministry. Operation Shanela and the establishment of the PTEU have already had a significant impact towards the normalization of the taxi industry in KwaZulu-Natal and will continue to operate as part of our law enforcement operations. We are committed to a holistic programme that will rid the taxi industry of violence, change the mindset of stakeholders and diversify its business interests. To this end we intend holding a Taxi Imbizo on the 18-20 August 2004. The Taxi Imbizo will include the leadership from both the taxi industry and enforcement agencies. We are in the process of appointing appropriate consultants – including psychologists – who will assist us in consolidating and diversifying the business interests of the taxi industry and with disarming it and changing its mindset to ensure that our taxi industry in KwaZulu-Natal does take its rightful place as a critical pillar of our inter-modal transport system.

Finally, there is a growing awareness in South Africa that transport corridors, especially freight transport corridors, are also transmission corridors for communicable diseases. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport has embraced the notion that in dealing with the freight transport sector we must necessarily now include a communication and education component to our programme which raises awareness of appropriate preventative measures that can be taken to avoid the transmission of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and TB.

Budget: R254 409 000 million

Our mandated development goal is to create a safe road environment through the annual reduction of road crashes. The main services rendered by this programme include road traffic enforcement, road safety education and the analysis and re-engineering of hazardous locations.

Mr Speaker, the members of this House are familiar with my Department’s approach to address traffic management and road safety concerns. You are all very familiar with the fact that we couple our Zero Tolerance enforcement campaign with programmes that inform and educate the community at large about correct road safety behaviour. It is not my intention therefore to belabour these issues. Suffice to say that our approach is beginning to bear fruit. This is readily confirmed by the fact that road fatalities during the December 2003 holiday period reduced by 17,95%. This is a magnificent achievement. Our success is due to growing public support for our work and programmes as well as the diligent performance of duties by our staff. Making sure that road safety is indeed everyone’s business is by no means an easy undertaking.

The establishment of a "culture" of road safety is regarded as a priority by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport for several reasons. These include:

• the unacceptably high loss of lives which threatens the economic survival of many families and results in a massive skills drain on the South African economy
• the high cost to the State and Provincial fiscus of road collisions (this is estimated to be in the region of R14 billion to R18 billion nationally and some R2 billion for KwaZulu-Natal)
• attaching a criminal record for road safety offences to normally law abiding citizens has a negative impact on the well being of families and the economy at large

The goal of saving lives through reduced road collisions lends itself substantially to the Department’s strategic vision of improving the quality of life of our people as well as ensuring economic prosperity for the province. Each year therefore my Department attempts to build on the solid foundations of previous programmes that have proved to be successful.

In 2002 / 2003 we piloted the installation of Intelligent Road Studs on P47/4, the road linking Ulundi to Melmoth. This route was chosen as our pilot precisely because it had an abnormally high accident rate with as many as 307 accidents recorded in 2001 alone, 15 of which were fatal accidents. If we apply the formula developed by the CSIR to cost accidents in South Africa we estimate the cost of these 307 accidents to be some R16 million. After installing Intelligent Road Studs the incidents of accidents on this stretch of road reduced to only 22 accidents of which 2 accidents resulted in fatalities. This is a remarkable achievement. It is now intention to extend the installation of Intelligent Road Studs to other high accident routes, including Fields Hill and from Ulundi to Vryheid.

Our commitment to end the carnage on our roads extends to ensuring that the pillars of civil society join with us in our fight against road related crime. Many of you will be familiar with our mass awareness campaigns such as Siyabakhumbula, Asiphephe focus days and inter-denominational prayer days which are designed to bring about a behavioural change among road users. It is our intention, this financial year, to continue to consolidate our relationship with civil society institutions and, in particular, to focus on securing the support of KwaZulu-Natal’s churches and religious leaders to ensure that the culture of road safety truly becomes everyone’s business.

Budget: R27 040 000 million

Community Based Programmes is a new budget line that has been specifically created to encourage innovative development strategies that specifically target vulnerable sectors of our society through the introduction of pilot programmes that, if successful, can be allocated budgets to go to scale. It is generally acknowledged that the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport has an enviable record for innovative development thinking and programming. The sectors that have been identified for support through this budget include new poverty alleviation projects, women empowerment, youth and learnerships.

There can be no doubting the fact that the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport is well advanced towards achieving its objective of "Building a People’s Contract" for sustainable transport systems in KwaZulu-Natal. In this I need to acknowledge that a great deal of the success of the Department’s achievements can be attributed to the leadership of my predecessor, Premier Ndebele. I have inherited from him a strong management team, a loyal and dedicated staff and, most of all, programmes that are truly valued by the KwaZulu-Natal public. Much has been achieved over the past ten years. Much more needs to be achieved in the next five years.

Soccer World Cup 2010 will herald in a brighter future for all of us in South Africa but particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Over the next five years our province will experience unprecedented capital investment in upgrading existing economic infrastructure (e.g. roads, ports), developing new economic infrastructure (e.g. Dube Trade Port) and expanding our tourism and hospitality sectors. We are, after all, the Gateway Province to the South African economy.

We can manage this opportunity to fundamentally restructure our society by ensuring that maximum benefits accrue to the poor and disadvantaged in KwaZulu-Natal. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport has a proud record of assisting the poor to share in the economy of KwaZulu-Natal. My commitment to the public is to continue to improve on this record.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank my Head of Department, Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa, and his dedicated management team and the entire staff of KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport for all their hard work and commitment. I would also like to thank the members of Portfolio Committee for the contribution to my budget and my department.

It is now my privilege to formally table the Department of Transport Budget of R1,804,607 billion for the 2004 / 2005 financial year for approval.

Thank you.

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