Wheels come off state’s R77bn bus plan
● Sixteen years and R55bn later, the government’s much-vaunted “revolutionary” bus rapid transit (BRT) system is going nowhere slowly.
The project, championed by the government since 2005, was meant to provide the majority of South Africans with efficient, affordable, safe and reliable public transport.
But it has emerged that of the municipalities that received billions to implement it, at least three have been kicked off the R77bn programme due to poor performance, with most having little to show for it amid mismanagement of funds and no accountability.
At least R780m was spent on consultants in Mangaung in the Free State, Mbombela in Mpumalanga and Msunduzi in KwaZuluNatal, which yielded no results.
The BRT system was to work in tandem with minibus taxis and trains to undo the spatial legacy of apartheid, which saw most working-class citizens pushed to the periphery of cities, far from jobs and other economic opportunities. However, since 2008 R77bn has been allocated to the programme and of that R55bn has been spent — yet still most South Africans rely on unsafe and unreliable public transport.
The department of transport (DoT) says the project has been delayed by political instability in municipalities and the mismanagement of funds, the lack of ethics and accountability, and the millions spent on consultants with no results.
DoT spokesperson Collen Msibi said the funds were transferred to 13 cities over the years as conditional grants and other expenditures were directly linked to the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
There were “ongoing instances of governance spending failures leading to wastage, mismanagement and inefficiency ... weak city implementation capacity to roll out a citywide network post 2010 in a speedy manner. This was further exacerbated from 2016 to 2021 in many cities due to governance changes, and then the Covid pandemic,” said Msibi.
Out of the 13 funded municipalities only eight have partially operational BRT systems. Three others — Msunduzi in Pietermaritzburg, Buffalo City in East London and Mbombela in Mpumalanga — were cut from funding by the National Treasury in 2020 because of lack of implementation and an endless rollover of funds.
Only projects in Cape Town, Tshwane and
Johannesburg are said to be stable, though they are far less accessible than minibus taxis. Johannesburg’s Rea Vaya BRT has incomplete infrastructure in some areas and is faced with financial troubles.
Msibi said some of the challenges included “poor choice of low-volume pilot corridors by cities from 2014. Instead cities needed to route to the heart of major townships. For example, Tshwane’s A Re Yeng CBD to Hatfield service was a low volume isolated route which needed to be linked instead to Mamelodi, Soshanguve and Atteridgeville as per the city’s 2015 plan.”
The City of Cape Town’s MyCiTi BRT project, which has a budget of R7.1bn from 2018 to 2028, is set to move to phase 2, which will include Khayelitsha, Philippi, Mitchells Plain and other townships.
Mangaung’s Hauweng BRT has nothing to show for R500m being spent on “professional services” to kick-start the project.
The DoT and parliament’s oversight committee on transport have also raised serious concerns about eThekwini municipality’s Go!Durban BRT project, which saw a staggering expenditure of R8bn by 2022, acquiring land, stations and terminal infrastructure and fare management systems — yet no transport system. The eThekwini project is so far behind that the city decided in 2023 to use the Queen Nandi bus terminal, which was meant to be part of Go!Durban, as an art centre.
DA MP Timothy Brauteseth said there needs to be ministerial intervention over eThekwini’s BRT project, which was started in 2013 when he was a councillor with a promise of completion by 2016. “The implementation of any government programme, as we all know, often comes down to proper planning and then the political will to push through when the going gets tough,” he said. “This has been the downfall of numerous public transport systems in South Africa.
“The lack of planning is not necessarily in the engineering detail ... it lies instead in the fanciful idea that taxi associations do not really have to be consulted ... The stranglehold that these associations have on South Africa necessitates that they should be consulted and, in some instances, offered a stake in a public-private partnership.
“The taxi bosses took umbrage and ensured that the project was stalled or stopped continuously, and 11 years later not one bus has moved along the route.”
The municipality announced this week that it had held engagements with taxi and bus operators with a new approach to save the BRT project. “The tactical adjustment framework aims to support the progressive transformation of the existing industry, maximise the supply of passengers to the IPTN (integrated public transport network) corridors and ensure a single ticketing solution is applied across all road-based modes of public transport in the eThekwini region ... The commencement of priority feeder route contracts is expected to be in June this year, while 12-month contracts are expected to be finalised by September, seven-year contracts by October 2025 and five-year contracts by November 2032,” said Thami Manyathi, head of eThekwini Transport Authority.
The DoT, in briefing parliament’s standing committee on appropriations about the Msunduzi municipality, said: “The city’s IPTN plan was largely a quality bus system with high volume and potentially viable corridors. The IPTN project had been mired in unsavoury spending since it was ramped up to implementation from 2013 ... The city had several changes and instability in project management leadership due to suspensions. There were contract management challenges with some of the construction projects, resulting in wasteful and fruitless expenditure.”
The city is said to have paid R38.9m to consultants to advise on taxi services to facilitate the formalisation and formation of a company to operate the BRT, but no company was formed by 2022.
Msibi said that of the three cities suspended, only Msunduzi has been pre-admitted for 2024/25, with a small budget and clear milestones. The final readmission will be decided by the end of 2025/26 subject to performance and achievement of the milestones.
Mbombela was suspended for failing to comply with requirements of the IPTN and failing to account for more than R200m, the DoT told parliament. The municipality spent R43.9m on consultants to advise on taxi services to facilitate the formalisation and formation of a company to operate the BRT but no company was formed.
In East London, Buffalo City had seen delays with implementing its BRT since 2010 because of a protracted legal dispute over procurement, which it has now settled out of court. It was allocated R314.3m between 2008 and 2013 and had only spent R7.9m.