Weak political leadership blamed for SA's transport woes

INDUSTRY GURUS have blamed the state of South Africa’s transport system on weak political leadership and irrational thinking. “Action and implementation are dependent on the quality of the politicians, and I don’t think any South African politicians over the past 30 years have been strong enough in standing up to the Treasury,” says Dr Malcolm Mitchell of the South African Road Federation (SARF). “The able private sector will only be stirred into action under strong political leadership.” “If Government was a rational business mind, it would want people on the roads. Instead it has taken to dictating the mode of transport by only providing what it wants us to use,” says Garth Bolton of Cargo Carriers and a director of the Road Freight Association. “Congestion is a deliberate attempt to frustrate people off the roads and onto rail.” In the current free-market economy of this 13 year-old democracy, he questions whether government should have the right to decide what is the right and efficient mode of transport. “For years governments have used rail as an instrument of social engineering, working in tandem with the trade unions to capture votes,” according to Simon Avis of Nomad Freight. “Remember the farmers in the ‘30s.” While the current government sees the same opportunity, Avis adds: “These policies will not work unless they provide a competitive alternative as part of the programme. If the cargo is to take advantage of the many real economies offered by rail over road, the whole system must work properly.” Government has been collecting between R16bn and R18bn every year since 2001, according to Bolton, but only between R3.5bn and R7.5bn is spent on road infrastructure upgrades each year. “This money comes in from fuel taxes, and where these were previously dedicated solely to roads, now this money goes into the general fiscus.” This goes back to Mitchell’s point on leadership. “When Ben Schoeman was Transport Minister and someone mentioned congestion, he would have marched into the Treasury and got the money to deal with it.” He goes on: “Say rail takes 25% of freight off the roads; in two or three years’ time at the current growth rate we are going to be stuck in the same situation we are in now.”