A taxi rank in the Pietermaritzburg CBD. A billion rand was spent on a bus rapid transport system for Msunduzi Municipality but it is unlikely to get off the ground. After one billion rand was spent, six kilometres of highway is all that the Msunduzi Municipality has to show of a bus rapid transport system project that the National Treasury is now considering shutting down.
The work completed, city councillors have said, constitutes about 20% of the work that should have been done in a project that started 10 years ago. The Integrated Public Transport Network System (IPTNS) programme, otherwise known as the BRT (bus rapid transport) system, was meant to create fast and reliable public transport in the Pietermaritzburg area and is now on the verge of becoming a white elephant. The revelations on the perilous state of the project have angered ratepayers and councillors who said those who failed to deliver should be held accountable.
The national portfolio committee on Transport visited the city this week and stated that the national Department of Transport has ordered the winding down of the Msunduzi project. Chairperson Donald Selamolela expressed that the successful implementation of the programme had the potential to be a catalyst for economic growth and job creation. “The programme, otherwise known as the BRT system, should not have failed, especially after so much money had already been spent.
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This programme ought not only to have benefited commuters but should have provided employment opportunities for our people. “We are disappointed and concerned with what we found in Pietermaritzburg [Msunduzi Local Municipality]. The programme is going to become a white elephant if nothing is done.” He mentioned that the National Department of Transport informed the committee that the project will be discontinued.
“Currently, the national department has ordered a stop, while the municipality insists it has plans to continue. That does not work; the municipality should use the available funding to develop comprehensive work plans to repurpose the already laid-out infrastructure.” Speaking to The Mercury, he detailed the extent of the problems in the area. He noted that when the committee was last there in 2022, “if you compare the work we found then and now, there is very little progress that has been made.” He stated that the road has no buses, no bus stops, no access bridges for passengers, and sections of it need to be expanded, which could require the relocation of factories close to the road, necessitating huge sums of money to do so.
He suggested that they could repurpose the infrastructure to allow for the use of the road to ease traffic congestion. “Even with the project stopped, we cannot allow public funds to go to waste. Almost a billion rand has been spent on that project.”
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