Right.
Let's focus then on transports specifically. The Minister of Transport, Barbara Creasy, presented her budget in Parliament today. The details of what's going to be spent are the subject of some fierce discussion, strong criticisms coming from a couple of the opposition parties. But let's welcome two seven h two drive then, Minister Barbara Creasy, thanks very much for giving us your time.
Good afternoon, Johanna, and greetings to all your listeners.
In a large budget you make some really substantial transfers to some agencies that have, to put it mildly, a checked record of looking after that money and spending it well coming to mind, and at twenty to almost twenty three billion round is the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa PRASA. There's been controversy as well around sun roll
and allocations tenders awarded that people have contested. They're getting almost twenty seven billion round and I could go on, but let me not and asked the question, rather, do you allocate this money with complete confidence, A in the probity of the entities and be in their competence.
John, I think if we look at Prance's recent record, we have seen a situation where after the over the last three years, they have managed to restore thirty five out of the forty priority lines. This has been a very huge undertaking. During the COVID pandemic, these lines were significantly vandalized. Many of our stations were totally dismantled and cartered away. And I have visited many of these programs and I'm pleased to say that these lines are now operating.
The money that we are receiving from National Treasury is primarily intended to deal with signaling. One of the reasons that we're not able to run all of the new blue trains that we have acquired is because we're still using a manual signaling a situation. We need to finalize signaling on these lines in order to increase what we call the slots, so that we are able to run trains more frequently, particularly during rush our peak periods, and
ensure that commuters can get more safely and effectively to work. Similarly, with Sunral, I have visited most of their big construction projects in two and three. I think that these are enormous construction projects that are being undertaken and Melotter Road is another one of these roads. That construction has been outstanding for a significant period of time. In all of my dealings with with the entities, we have emphasized that we have to move to appointment of contractors. There has
to be fit oversight on the management. And because we've got sixteen entities under our department, we're actually reviewing our whole oversite model so that we can make sure that these entities are actually focusing on what legislation says, are they objectives and we don't have a mission drift.
Yes, other problems so Minister, I mean, I take your point that on site you will see impressive work. But given that this is a budget vote today, the management of the money is critical. Just at a glance order to general last year, drawing attention to the prosserboard three
point eight billion rand in irregular expenditure. They may well get railway lines open, but in terms of the governance of pros and there may be others we can talk about, are you confident that that government's governance is now in place because all of this infrastructure is critical, there really isn't a round to waste.
John, I think when we're dealing with irregular expenditure, the key issue that the Order to General wants to know is that there has been consequence management over future I mean over previous irregular expenditure. Some of this expenditure is
still subject to SIU investigations and criminal proceedings. But I have recently addressed a letter to the Board on this very question of regular expenditure, asking for a detailed documentation on what they're doing to meet National Treasury's requirements so that we can actually care this irregular expenditure.
What about entities like the Air Traffic Navigation Services You've been exercised with some of the delays in for example, flight plans has had knock on effects at airports where planes can't leave and land. This is an entity, by the way, who CEO takes home? I think six point one four million rand a year. The executive salaries are substantial. What is your overall view of the competence of the executives who run the key entities that fall under transporter?
We got the right people? Well. I think it's a matter of public record that I did request the Board to suspend the CEO of the Air Traffic Navigation Services following the intervention team that I appointed earlier this year. That found a number of problems in the entity. So those processes with regard to that suspension are still going on, but it was a very dire situation that we discovered there. We've had to re establish recruitment of a range of
highly skilled personnel. We've also had to re establish the whole training pipeline. You know, South African air traffic navigators and others skilled personnel in the navigation space are highly sought after in the international domain and it means that you've got to have a big pipeline. We're also doing enormous amounts of work with the OEMs to make sure that we sought out the communication equipment, re establish all of the safety protocols and close out findings on safety audits.
And of course we're still working on the flight procedures and I am hoping that soon we'll have a project office so that we can finally deal with outstanding procedure and put this matter to bed once and for all.
So let's go back to roads if we can, or in fact go to roads, because we've been on the railway lines. Minister Provincial Roads Maintenance grand fifty three point one billion Rand. That's over the medium term expenditure framework, and there's a lot of work that needs doing. But we certainly hear regularly from our listeners about the state
of our roads. In terms of a province who gets an allocation, which gets an allocation to fix roads within its boundaries, to what extent does the National Ministry oversee choice of contractors, quality control and so on. Or is it pretty much you allocate and then you pretty much hope that they will do it and do it well.
Look, when myself and Deputy Minister came into the Department, we found that the capacity to do the kind of oversight that you're talking about had been undermined in in the department. We have re established some of that capacity. It's critically important when we give conditional grants that we make sure that they are being effectively and efficiently spent, particularly in a situation where every year I get requests
from provincial premiers to take over provincial roads. I mean, I've just taken over another three thousand kilometers at the request of provincial premiers. So we do want to know that this money is being effectively spent. And one of the issues that I will be discussing in the National Council of Provinces when I do the budget vote there tomorrow. Is the role that provinces themselves misplay with regard to the municipal Infrastructure grant that is supposed to be spent
upgrading municipal roads. There's a lot of complaints from citizens about the state of municipal roads, particularly you know, issues such as potome. But what we find is that the municipal Infrastructure grant is either being used for other budget necessities in municipalities or it's being returned to National Treasury. So this really is a very important function that provincial
authorities are also going to have to take on. Otherwise we are going to keep having very dissatisfied citizens while money is being returned to National Treasury.
In terms of the driver's license cards, this is a machine that is way beyond its life. I do acknowledge there have been court cases that may have delayed procedures, but this has reached the point where I think a lot of people are saying this has really got quite ridiculous. The technology is advanced. We had an expert on saying things that used to take up huge areas and huge rooms,
machines literally on our desktops. What are the provisions for that and what undertakings might the Transport Department give that this is going to get sorted out once and for all, because it aids a long running story, But it doesn't sound enormously complicated.
John, let me say that we've we've signed an MoU with the Government Printers because it is necessary to have a backup to this very old machine that's currently working really hard to try and deal with backlog that has accumulated in driver's license cards while the review mechanism on the purchase of the new card machine is underway. I don't want to talk about the long term solutions because
obviously that prejudges the matter. But as you as you correctly point out these in the in the modern digital age, this is not rocket science anymore. But we have got this interim solution with the Government Printer and I hope that that is going to help us to eliminate the backlog and deal with the justifiable frustration that our citizens are facing at the moment.
Minister presumably continued allocations to the Road Accident Fund to for its operations, but one of our listeners, Rhon asks why there are so many vacancies in transport departments in general and particularly at the RAF and lists chief Claims Officer, head of Claims Operations, head of Legal and I think there are another four or five that they list. Again, this is a department or an entity where the CEO earns a very large salary. Why are those vacancies allowed
to persist for as long as they do? I mean, there are boards for all of these state entities that fall under transport. Are the boards failing to do that job?
I think John that it's no secret that the governance at the Road Accident Fund is very problematic. I'm currently involved in a process that is attending to those governance matters. As soon as we have completed the due process, we will be obviously informing the public of that. In addition, I think that we do need legislative changes in relation to the Road Accident Fund. We need a no fault system so that it's easier for those who need to
benefit from the fund to put in claims. We also need a clear schedule of benefits so that there's a more equitable distribution of benefits amongst all citizens depending on the nature of their claim or their injury. So there's a lot of work that is required to be done there, and it is a matter that is receiving my urgent attention at the moment.
And just finally, Minister's suggestion from one of our listeners, I suppose a question implicit in this but suggesting that legislation that deals with penalties for reckless driving, and he's very exercised about many bus taxis, said that this should be applied based on the number of passengers whose lives are endangered. In other words, if you're transporting thirteen people, penalties would be more severe than if you're in a vehicle with two people in it. Any thoughts on that,
is that something that a sounds viable for you? And second that you might contemplate.
Well, John, the new auto system that will come into operation on the first of December does have a penalty system as well as a fine system, and the idea of the penalty system is to try and make sure that repeat offenders and miscreens are ultimately eliminated from a situation where they have drivers' licenses through this penalty system.
So I don't know whether it really deals with a number of passengers you have, but definitely your listener would be correct in saying that we can't just have a situation where we can weak out people are fine for the same bad behavior. There has to be long term consequences and I think that's what the ARTO system aims to achieve.
Transport Minister Barbara Cristie, thanks very much.