The Ministers of Public Enterprises, Transport and Public Works and Infrastructure are among the economic cluster Ministers who answered questions in the National Assembly. African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) Leader Kenneth Meshoe raised concern about the state of Transnet Ports in various provinces during questions to Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
“Challenges at the Port of Durban are primarily technical and structural. The need for structural changes was evidenced in the World Bank report that was published in May of 2021 which ranked the Ports of Cape Town, Kouga and Gqeberha and Durban, four of the worst Ports in the world in terms of operational efficiency.”
Gordhan says government is aware of the World Bank report. He also blamed state capture for some of the problems at the ports.
“And we would welcome those sorts of critics to assist Transnet in improving their performance. Secondly, Transnet is aware of that report and within limited financial means at their disposal, they are attending to many of the recommendations that are made in the report itself. The decline that honourable Meshoe is talking about in the various reports can be attributed to the state capture process. To the fact that money was diverted from issues like maintenance of equipment and even buying of certain type of equipment in favour of the 10-64 locomotive equipment for example.
GOOD Party Chief Whip Brett Herron asked Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga about the taxi licensing regime. He suggested that this should be changed to benefit the minibus taxi industry.
“When E-hailing arrived in South Africa operators like Uber were given the opportunity to present business plans and convinced planning authority on how many license should be granted based on their participated supply and demand. So, Minister isn’t it time that we change the licensing regime, in order for the minibus taxi industry in the supply and demand models that planning authorities are using in order to determine the number of licenses being given on each route. Chikunga acknowledged some of the points raised by Herron.
“It is also true that before an operator is granted an operating license there must be some consultation. It would create a lot of challenges if you don’t have the operating license, because it would mean that anyone can operate anywhere and as you said yourself, many of the conflicts that we see, they emanate from the routes and from the other people who may not even have to operate the other operating licenses operating on routes. And I think what we may need to emphasise is that those that issue operating licenses, do consult before they issue operating license.”
The issue of the construction mafia also came to the fore. Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Sihle Zikalala was questioned by the DA’s Sello Seitlholo.
“The incidents of construction mafia are dealt with by relevant law enforcement agencies including the South African Police Services, because this is a criminal activity. Disruption, intimidation, extortion are all criminal and they should be dealt with as such. The Department of Public Works does not make actual arrests because actual arrests should be made by the law enforcement agencies. While we don’t make actual arrests or keep record, but we obtained record and statistics from time to time from South African Police Services which is the only competent authority to keep such information. And therefore the total number of 682 which we have reported emerged from that process. Zikalala reiterated that the only competent authority that can arrest a person is the South African Police Services.
Source: eNCA
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