Cape Town - President Cyril Ramaphosa has yet to respond to Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’s invitation to form a joint working committee with the City for the urgent devolution of passenger rail.
Asked if there had been any official response to the letter, a spokesperson for the mayor said they had so far received “just an automated acknowledgment, but no response to the content of the letter as yet.”
In a letter to the president on Monday, Hill-Lewis said: “I have asked President Ramaphosa to confirm his commitment to devolving passenger rail to metros, and that this Cabinet-approved policy has not been abandoned.
“We are asking the president to form a joint working committee with the City to chart the way towards rail devolution in the shortest possible time. If we don’t do this critical preparation now, it will take many years for rail to be devolved for the metro to run.”
Hill-Lewis said he was concerned about the issue because recently, there had been what he called “a series of recent anti-devolution comments from within the ANC”.
Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga said in Cape Town last month: “For now we are not in the process of devolving railway services. That is why Prasa is busy building up railway services in the Western Cape.”
In May last year, the Cabinet passed the White Paper on National Rail Policy which commits to devolving rail to capable metros and to producing a rail devolution strategy in 2023.
Hill-Lewis wanted the president’s confirmation that the White Paper pledge still stood.
In May last year, former transport Minister Fikile Mbalula launched the White Paper, saying: “The White Paper acknowledges the importance of devolving public transport functions to the lowest level of government.
“To this end, the National Rail Policy requires the development and approval of a devolution strategy for commuter rail to guide the assignment of the commuter rail function to the municipal sphere of government.”
However, in January he declined to form such a working committee, confirming in a letter to Hill-Lewis that his department “has not been given a directive by the government and me to start with any form of devolution”.
Also in January, ANC policy head for economic transformation, Mmamoloko Kubayi, told journalists that devolving rail was off the table for the ANC, and that she would “not advise any department to dissolve (sic) power or function to the metros”.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za