On Tuesday on March 20, Ekurhuleni experienced less road rage, because most of the taxis were not operational on the day.
I drove to work in a happier mood until I hit Rietfontein Road when two lone taxis for some or other reason had blocked one of the lanes – not intentionally, they were dealing with embarking passengers and mechanical issues.
Taxis are a headache, but they do provide a valuable service, like it or not. After all, public transport in Gauteng is a nightmare, period.
For this reason, the metro, years ago, came up with the clever plan of introducing the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system, and someone somewhere decided to call it Harambee (which is Swahili and apparently it means pull together).
The system envisioned connecting the nine towns that make up Ekurhuleni, including Boksburg, in a bid to overcome the problems created by apartheid (yes blame it on the old government) spatial planning.
The taxi industry slammed on brakes in delivering service on Tuesday because for once it was championing a good cause – the delay of the BRT system.
I am writing about the system because we as the citizens of this metro needs to be aware of what is going on, after all, it is our taxpayer’s money that is being wasted.
Harambee is a travesty in terms of service delivery, just as the debacle surrounding the metro’s delay in fixing the lifts at Scribante (by the way, there are about 10 other housing ‘havens’ across the metro that also sit with broken lifts).
Do you know as a taxpayer of the BRT that construction of this system started in April, 2014? Yes, it is almost four years later and nothing is yet fully operational. Shocking, right?
Back in July of 2016, the Ekurhuleni metro outlined some of its key milestones and deliverables achieved in the last five years of Council’s term of office on matters of governance.
Among the mentioned milestones were the Harambee bus project. At the time it was said the project will be launched before the end of 2016.
Well, here we are, almost in April 2018 and this milestone looks more like a yoke around the neck of the public transport service. There is nothing celebratory about it … it is just a tragic testimony of a lack of competent service.
Granted, Harambee is a great idea, but really, it is a bus service, so why all the money and all the delays?
During September last year, the Advertiser reported that in a reply to a Parliamentary question that over R1.6-billion had been spent on the BRT system that was already 15 months behind in becoming operational.
Apparently, a total budget of R2 272 685 751-b has been set aside to implement the system. Yes folks, more than R2-b to buy a couple of buses and sharpen up some infrastructure.
What is even stranger, is that in February 2017, the metro launched Phase 1 of the BRT #Harambee system. The Advertiser attended the launch, took photos of the metro officials smiling, yet what has happened since?
Back in October 2015, the Advertiser attended another launch when the long-awaited name of the Ekurhuleni BRT was revealed by then Ekurhuleni mayor Mondli Gungubele.
At that time, Gungubele, who by the way now serves on the cabinet of President Ramaphosa, said they had already done extensive work to build the infrastructure, and the order for the buses has already been placed.
The then mayor also said the following: “Our people must know that their safe, comfortable and affordable movement in terms of transport remains one of our key priorities and has been since the establishment of Ekurhuleni in 2000.”
A key priority? It hardly seems so, for something is amiss and not adding up. For this reason, the taxi industry in Ekurhuleni marched to the mayor’s office out of protest.
Back in September 2017, the then Minister of Transport Joe Maswanganyi said that were delays in the procurement process for the various work streams while they also had experienced a slow pace of construction by some of the infrastructure contractors as well as financial cash flow challenges.
Mere excuses that do not really make sense. It simply sounds like bad management, and yes, more wasting of our money as taxpayers.
Question is, when will we finally see excellence in service delivery from our government, and when will we as taxpayers get value for the money we are spending?
In the meantime, the wheels of the BRT system just goes round and round …
