Taxpayer not free of Gautrain yet
IF THERE is one thing guaranteed to make me grumpy it’s the Gautrain, a world-class rail transport system that promises much, only to deceive. The total cost of this gargantuan piece of public engineering is now R32bn, and it seems we aren’t finished paying for it yet, not by a long chalk. While I’m on the subject, the numbers trotted out about the Gautrain are all over the place. For example, the website www.sapolitics.co.za (January 9) said the cost was R34bn, and there are half-a-dozen examples of similar discrepancies.
Neil Campbell, the Democratic Alliance’s spokesman for roads and transport in the Gauteng legislature, tells me the number of passengers the Gautrain was intended to serve was 110,000 a day, but if it hits 47,000 (43%) it’s a good day.
On the other hand, Gautrain Management Agency CE Jack van der Merwe says the system now car- ries 52,000 passengers a day. To be fair, he says the target of more than 100,000 a day is for 2016.
Errol Braithwaite, an executive with the operating concession holders, Bombela, told Engineering News (December 2012) that, based on current usage patterns “if every train from 5.30am to 8.30pm ran at full capacity, we would still only move about 79,000 people a day”.
Apparently, additional rolling stock is required. Earlier this month Van der Merwe said the agency was considering buying another 40 railcars to supplement the 96-car fleet, although Campbell tells me an eightcar train currently stands permanently idle. If that’s right it’s a muddle, and that’s what seems to happen with the Gautrain: a lot of talking and not very much action.
I first raised the acute problem caused by its curious operating hours in July 2011. It makes no sense to start the OR Tambo airport service at 5.30am when the first domestic flights leave at 6am. It makes less sense to close off at 8.30pm when passengers from Cape Town and Durban are still in the air.
Van der Merwe told me in December 2011 that “talks” were under way. Presumably, they are still under way, which must be a record even for SA, a champion talk nation.
Meanwhile, there are huge fights between Bombela and the agency about the groundwater problem that threatens the Gautrain service, especially when there are heavy rains. This is worst on the line between the Rosebank and Park (city) stations.
At times, Bombela has to pump like the devil.
At least in part, this explains why there is such reluctance to extend the operating hours. It’s called engineering maintenance time, but more prosaically it might also mean that the original specifications haven’t been met. I find it hard to believe that on the Witwatersrand, with more than a century of mining experience, the water problem could have been underestimated.
But an aggravated legal argument has been going on now for two years or so and as construction giant Murray & Roberts CE Henry Laas says, there are “billions of rand at play here”. Not surprisingly, Campbell observes that “relationships between Bombela and the agency aren’t harmonious”.
The patronage arrangement (an unfortunate phrase in this country) ensures that Bombela is subsidised by the Gauteng government to the extent that it covers costs and makes a profit, until income from farepaying passengers gets to breakeven. That subsidy cost R830m in the year ended last March.
Van der Merwe points out that public transport is subsidised everywhere, and he says Metrorail, where two-thirds of ticket costs are supported by the public purse, is not any different.
I do not argue with that assessment but I do take issue when it appears that the greatest care isn’t exercised when expecting a longsuffering travelling public to keep forking out ever larger sums to get to and from work. That observation isn’t confined to the Gautrain.