Specialist debates merits of rail regulator

ALAN PEAT WHILE THE steel giant Iscor is proposing a regulator to correct the faults in the rather woebegone Spoornet railway system, this cannot be an overnight solution, according to specialist transport lawyer Tony Norton of Durban-based Garlicke & Bousfield. “An independent regulator would need an act of parliament.” There are other paths to a form of regulator, Norton added, but none that he considers really satisfactory. Transnet could in itself act as a regulator of its railway subsidiary. But this suffers from the unacceptable condition of Transnet being both the regulator and the regulated. Government could set up a stop-gap mechanism, Norton added. “But,” he said, “this body would have no legal power to do anything except channeling any objection through the Department of Public Enterprises as a shareholder of Transnet.”