Welcoming Remarks by Honourable Premier TSP Makwetla at the Coal Haulage Conference
Gert Sibande District Municipality , Secunda
26-27 October 2007
Programme Director,
The Honourable Minister of Transport, Mr J. Radebe,
The District Mayor of Gert Sibande, Clr Andries Gamede, and the Acting Mayor of Govan Mbeki Municipality , Clr Okie Motsweni,
The MEC for Roads and Transport, MEC D D Mabuza and Members of the Executive Council,
Executive Mayors from the Gert Sibande municipalities and Councillors,
Representatives and senior managers from Eskom,
Representatives from the DBSA,
Chief Executive of SANRAL, Mr N Ali and other SANRAL senior managers,
Representatives of the Chamber of Mines,
The Director General and Senior Managers from the Department of Transport both at National and in the Province,
Representatives of other Parastatals,
Our contractors and consultants and other service providers,
Community structures and leaders here present,
Residents of the Gert Sibande District municipalities in general,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
At the out-set may I express my sincere appreciation for the privilege accorded to me by the organisers, to make opening remarks at this long-awaited intervention aimed at rehabilitating and restoring this region's most important infrastructure, the coal supply arteries for power generation.
The Province appreciates your interest and participation in this conference which is aimed at collectively finding solutions to address the deteriorating condition of the coal-haulage-routes-network in the Province. We are thrilled that the deliberations of this conference will provide an opportunity for all the stakeholders to reach consensus on a set of key interventions required for the reconstruction and sustainable maintenance of coal haulage roads.
Over the last three years we have had fruitful and constructive engagements with the national government and Eskom to look at various ways in which we could design solutions that address the challenges of adverse road damages as a result of hauling coal to Eskom power stations for electricity generation.
Programme Director, allow me to thank the Hon. Minister of Transport and the Minister of Public Enterprises respectively for their political leadership and support towards dealing with the challenges of the coal haulage routes network.
Our view is that an efficient and effective transport system enables economic and social development, and the deterioration of the road network therefore has negative consequences on the economy. In Mpumalanga , roads play a major role in the economy because a significant portion of the Province's coal (and other minerals) transportation system is land based.
The growth of the South African economy has been coupled with growing demand for energy inputs to support the economy. Energy demand and supply to households has also been growing exponentially. All this has created a need for the expansion of Eskom's production capacity to cater for the growing national energy needs. Increased growth in coal demand by Eskom and the re-commissioning of previously mothballed power stations, has seen the increase in the volume of coal transported by road to the power stations.
The rapid increase in coal hauling by road for power generation has resulted in a significant deterioration in the road conditions and this has had a negative impact on road safety in the Province. The degradation of coal haulage routes has forced users to use alternative longer routes to reach destinations thereby placing an unnecessary premium on the cost of coal. A consequent effect is that the alternative routes are suffering the same degradation as the preferred routes.
As a matter of heritage, South Africa 's inexhaustible coal deposits are here, it is not a provincial matter, it is a national design.
Given the Province's limited resources, our pace of constructing, rehabilitating and maintaining the road network has not matched the pace of demand on our roads. There is therefore a need for collaboration and partnerships among stakeholders to address challenges on the coal haulage network.
The purpose of this conference is to ensure that we engage all the relevant key stakeholders such as Eskom, mining houses and companies that are active in this sector on the role they can play in ensuring the provision and maintenance of the roads infrastructure. The principle that ‘the user must pay' for the use of the road network should be upheld so, that resources for the maintenance of the coal haulage network are continuously mobilised. In this context, the opening of the Kinross Weigh-bridge this morning is an important development in the management of our roads.
There needs to be a collective agreement on the strategic road network grid to support present and future mining in Mpumalanga as well as a sustainable funding model that will enlist equitable contributions by all the role players. It will hopefully present solutions for public-private partnership models necessary to improve road infrastructure and enforce overload control and monitoring so that we limit damage on our roads.
We are furthermore hopeful that this conference will be crucial in mapping out concrete plans for increased investment in rail infrastructure to minimize the impact of coal freight on our roads.
Programme Director, it is our honest and humble view that when it comes to confronting tactical realities which are presented by objective varied sets of circumstances, nothing can and should be cast in stone. In time, we believe we will find one another with Spoornet about the future rail plans for this region.
I would like to convey our appreciation of Eskom's commitment and contribution towards funding the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the coal haulage network. You displayed boldness characteristic of high impact leadership by thinking outside the comfort of the familiar boxes we are accustomed to operating in. You defied the temptation to hide behind adducing the legitimate excuse of the irrelevance of this challenge to your core-business, energy generation, as a government business concern.
Your example has inspired your other partners in this project, viz, the Provincial Government and SANRAL to honour their obligation to mobilise more resources to meet the shortfall in the projected overall budgets. On behalf of the provincial government may I take this opportunity to pledge our commitment to honour our obligation in this regard.
In conclusion, Programme Director, whereas this project is about guaranteeing the requisite energy supplies to our growing economy, it is to our province one of the economic high impact projects for job creation in order to half poverty and unemployment through the envisaged investment of R3 billion plus in the next three years.
Thank you.