Question NW686 to the Minister of Transport
03 April 2019 - NW686
Waters, Mr M to ask the Minister of Transport
(1)With reference to the reply to question 898 on 20 April 2018, do the operating costs stated only include the limited kerbside services or a fully operational phase 1; if so, how is the huge cost of limited kerbside services justified; (2) do the operational cost include the paying of consultants; if so, (a) what amount is to be paid to consultants in each year, (b) on what date will the consultants contracts come to an end and (c) what is the purpose of employing consultants in each case?
Reply:
1. The operating costs are based on a very limited kerb side pre-pilot service with 6 operational buses initially. While this would have been palatable if scaled up to aPhase 1-like 40 and then 80 buses carrying over 20 000 average weekday passenger trips within 6 months to a year, this did not happen and hence the current scale of costs and ridership is unbalanced and unviable.
Despite 2 years of DoT appeals, the city has proven incapable of correcting this. Hence a final warning has been communicated to the city project team in March 2019 and they have 6 months to rebalance costs and revenues and move to viability.
2. a) Amount: R 50 million per annum
b) June 2020
c) To increase the City’s capacity