Dear Fikile – Please stop tweeting for a minute, and fix our railways

Grandfathers around the Sunday lunch table this weekend will be rejoicing at Minister Razzmatazz’s acknowledgement that we need to move freight off the roads and onto the tracks.

After all, anybody driving on the single lane sections of the N1 has been agonising over this for years. It should be one of the easiest things to do, or at least it should have been when we still had functional rail.

Before lockdown about 170 goods trains were cancelled because of spikes in overhead cable theft. Today, many parts of the network that once blossomed and made car manufacturers love South Africa are defunct.

Oh, and rails that don’t get stolen lead to inoperable stations.

Yes, it’s going to take quite a bit to get South Africa’s rail system functional enough to compete with trucks. This is especially true in instances where we’ve gotten so used to immediate delivery.

Also Read: Private sector increasingly taking over key functions from ‘incompetent’ state

If you’re a user of trains in South Africa and have experienced a consecutive number of on time trips, you’re a fortunate soul. Take that fortune and try to apply it to businesses already struggling with South African infrastructure in energy, red tape and rates and well, you won’t be blamed for not putting more reliance on state competence.

After spending R70 million and 18 months, we had a lovely train station in Nasrec back in 2010. Where is it now?

Still there. Just closed, and mothballing into obscurity. That’s a story that is shared with numerous stations around the country.

To wake up after the death of children due to reckless truck driving is all good and well. At least there’s a direction. It’s just that that direction lacks tracks, and a plan, and any certainty. Oh! And any cognisance of history.

Mbalula himself spent 2020 admitting to the issues at Prasa and firing the entire board. He even said things like “overloaded vehicles remain one of the biggest threats to South Africa’s national road network”.

So, you’ll forgive me for believing that this most recent awakening has no promise of action.
Yeah, it’s a great idea. Cool.

It was a great idea decades ago too, and yet precious little was done to both avoid truck incidents and incentivise rail transport.

The movement from road to rail is of course important and has, as he’s put it, become “urgent and necessary”.

My question is, who made it so?

It wasn’t the Nats. It certainly isn’t something we can fault the colonisers for. They brought the rail in.

So, why in 2022 is this suddenly urgent and necessary? All transport all over the country has been the purview of Mr Fix-It since 2019, and his latest self-boast is that he’s the most visible minister on Twitter?

I’ve not known Twitter to hold any interest in transport, but at least one would think that it would relate to some sort of accountability. Seems not.

I like Fikile. I think he does mean well. It would be nice to see that translate into something tangible.

Our rail sucks and it shouldn’t because it was up there with the best in the world. I mean, we still boast some of the greatest private rail experiences in the world, with Ravos and the Blue Train, but as far as public access goes and especially freight, no ways am I trusting my business with Transnet in this state.

Also Read: Infrastructure theft costs Transnet more than R4bn

If freight is to move to trains, we need not only some serious refurbishment. We also need some accountability beyond Twitter.

Something like the minister saying that this refurbishment should never have been necessary and take the hit for that.

Boris Johnson took a hit for throwing a party. Minister Razzmatazz hasn’t even arrived to this party yet.

The invitation was sent years ago. This week he finally RSVPed. It’s now a matter of seeing whether he’ll show up and when, and what the appearance fee will be.

I mean, we’re still waiting on that three hour train between Joburg and Durban that was promised to us three governments ago.

How about starting small?

No government procurement can take place unless the goods are transported by rail. It’s not like we’re not used to slow service delivery already.