‘Gautrain has absorbed scarce skills and resources’

Road should have benefited from at least some of the funds JOY ORLEK THERE ARE many reasons for Gauteng’s infrastructure melt-down – lack of investment, lack of planning and lack of co-ordination at government and provincial level among them. Whatever the cause, the result is major congestion – congestion that demands immediate investment. But critical funds as well as skills are in short supply thanks in part to the Gautrain, a project that has attracted strong criticism from several quarters. Among the critics is the straight-talking Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Johannesburg transport specialist and former president Pat Corbin. “The way the Gautrain has been railroaded through is totally unacceptable. We regard it as a gross misallocation of scarce resources at a time when the need for urgent investment in port, rail, commuter transport and roads has been identified, but not addressed due to lack of funds. “The initial cost of the project was estimated at R7-billion – and that’s when the rand was 10 to the dollar. “When the exchange rate came down to R7/$ the cost of the Gautrain should have reduced to R5bn – but it’s now R25bn and rising probably to R35bn. “From day one the JCCI was totally opposed to that volume of money going into one corridor.” Corbin believes that the public has been fed a diet of propaganda and that roads should have benefited from at least some of these funds. “The Gautrain will do nothing for the haulier. You can’t put any freight on it and because it’s a different gauge you can’t even use it as a freight facility.” And this while road congestion continues to add significantly to shippers’ and hauliers’ bottom lines. “If you’re in the freight business it’s taking you twice as long to do the job, which means you need twice the number of vehicles.” The Government’s welcome policy of addressing the need for public transport will, at best, reduce the rate of growth in car utilisation, but will certainly not reverse the growing number of cars on the road, says Corbin. "The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport is one of the organisations that has expressed its concerns over the project. “The province is looking at economic development. The thrust of this is trade, and trade is dependent on adequate infrastructure, as is our ability to trade competitively internationally. While price is a factor, depending on the nature of the business, reliability of supply is even more important. You can’t work on an average time – you have to work on the maximum time.” The Gautrain, he says, will do little to improve the province’s traffic flows and will also absorb traditional exports. “For example, steel that we used to export is now being used here. We’re not just spending money on massive importations – we’re actually losing foreign exchange earnings to which the Gautrain will not make any contribution.” With the project now well under way criticism cannot reverse the process. But the message for the future must be a better co-ordinated approach at all levels of government along with liaison with the private sector so that available funds and skills are allocated in such a way that not only all parties in the logistics chain benefit, but SA as a whole, he added.