logo
Latest News
Follow
Thursday / 13 February 2025
HomeNewsRamaphosa deals big blow to Cape Town

Ramaphosa deals big blow to Cape Town

President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the country’s National Rail Masterplan will now only be completed by the end of 2025, a year after initially planned.

The document includes policies that dictate the devolution of railway powers to individual municipalities. At present, the infrastructure is controlled by national entities such as the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa and Transnet.

“Work is underway to develop a National Rail Masterplan that will lay out the future for rail in South Africa,” said the President in his weekly newsletter.

“Among other things, the Masterplan will cover passenger rail in our cities, including rapid rail. It will also cover high-speed rail over long distances between centres. The substantial work required to develop the Masterplan is expected to be completed by the end of next year.”

An R11-billion opportunity

The City of Cape Town has been calling for the prioritisation of rail devolution since 2022 when Cabinet passed the White Paper on National Rail Policy.

It claims that a functional passenger rail service run by its own members will save lower-income households up to R932 million a year, sustain over 51,000 jobs, and contribute some R11 billion per annum to the city’s coffers.

“Cabinet’s own National Rail Policy White Paper 2022 first promised the delivery of a Devolution Strategy by 2023. Then in Parliament on 5 September 2023, the President promised the strategy would be concluded and approved by 2024,” said Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.

“We were very worried back in February at the President’s failure to even mention the devolution strategy in SONA, and now we hear of a new deadline of end-2025 for a ‘masterplan’. Given the track record to date and continuous delays, it is highly unlikely that the Rail Masterplan will be ready by the end of next year.”

He warned that national government’s failure to devolve rail powers would ultimately necessitate an intergovernmental dispute, though Cape Town would like to avoid such a scenario through constructive engagement with national powers.

“The City has a standing offer to the President to form a joint working committee to fast-track rail devolution, but has not received a response from the President despite a public commitment to do so,” said Hill-Lewis.

Mayor Hill-Lewis is due to meet Transport Minister Barbara Creecy in Cape Town today, Wednesday 30 October, and will raise the metro’s concerns.

The City’s Rail Feasibility Study – which sets out various devolution scenarios – will serve on the Council’s Urban Mobility committee agenda on 7 November 2024.

Pending Council approval in December, the City is set to develop detailed devolution business plans based on viable scenarios for rail takeover, including private sector concessions.

Show comments