Should the Minister of Transport be fired?

For as long as I’ve been writing about transport (many decades), the Department of Transport (DoT) – and its head, the minister at the time – has come under fire. Sometimes rightly. Sometimes wrongly. Now, it’s the turn of Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula who, of late, certainly does appear to be making some daft decisions (or doing nothing at all)…

One of the department’s and indeed the minister’s fiercest critics is the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA). In fact, its CEO, Wayne Duvenage, says “the DoT epitomises a broken department under a directionless ministry”.

Duvenage points to the expired driver’s licences debacle (thankfully, the deadline for renewal has been extended because road users simply could not renew them) as just one of many systemic breakdowns within the DoT, signalling a bigger issue of administrative incompetence that pervades the department.

“These negatively impact on the economy and the country’s citizens, leaving OUTA to believe that the President should recall the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula. He has now been in office for over two years but appears unable to address the significant failures in his department,” he claims.

OUTA believes that the inefficiencies are boosting corruption. “The challenges that motorists face when trying to obtain or renew their driver’s licences have given rise to a new norm of paying ‘facilitation fees’ to circumvent the department’s inefficiencies. This illustrates how corruption breeds when administrative chaos is ignored for years. The department’s inability to fix these problems makes it difficult to ensure functional and accountable governance and service delivery to citizens and stonewalls the fight against corruption,” says Duvenage.

He goes on to say that the DoT has serious issues and has experienced systemic failures across many fronts. “This pushes up costs for business and individuals.”

Duvenage specifies seven areas of failure:

• The failure to address the problems and inefficiencies around the implementation of AARTO and the demerit point system.
• The failure to end the e-toll fiasco, with endless broken promises of a solution.
• The Road Accident Fund remains in a serious state. Despite a “stay of pay-outs” (which merely exacerbates the problem down the line and causes serious problems for those in need of these claims), there is no public clarity on how this fund will be rescued.
• The failure to address the inaccuracies of eNatis (the vehicle registry system), which requires urgent rectifying, as the system plays an important safety, security and legal role.
• The International Air Services Council has been out of commission since March this year, which is not only a serious transgression of the law but has also hampered the allocation of outbound flight routes to local airlines. The failure by the Minister of Transport to appoint a new council in time (or extend the outgoing council for a few months) has had a negative impact on jobs and revenue for South Africa, and is inexcusable.
• The failure to address the ongoing problem of too many road fatalities.
• The taxi industry’s ongoing problems over route allocations, vehicle roadworthiness, driving skills and violence.

“OUTA has reached out to the Transport Ministry on several occasions, with virtually no response. This frustrating conduct does government no favours when it comes to building trust between the state and its citizens, who are forced to rely on media accounts and speculation related to many developments. We are not alone, as other civil society organisations are also ignored when raising concerns,” notes Duvenage.

One such organisation is the Automobile Association (AA). Spokesman Layton Beard says that there is considerable room for improvement when it comes to the DoT. “There are lots of issues around transport that remain concerning,” he tells FOCUS.

The AA is in full agreement with OUTA on many things – most notably the inefficiency of the DoT and its agencies as well as the country’s appalling road safety record. “The driving licence renewal and vehicle registration system is broken and must be replaced. This situation should be seen in the context of the R9,3m annual remuneration of Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) CEO Advocate Makhosini Msibi, who is responsible for ensuring all its systems work,” says Beard.

He points out that road safety is the core function of the RTMC. “Its stated surplus for 2019/2020 of close on R262 million indicates that motorists are being substantially overcharged for services rendered by the Corporation. Plus, the  AA questions how a surplus of close to R262m is possible given this dire state of the country’s roads.”

Judging by a recent Financial Mail (FM) column, the views of these organisations are shared by many observers. In its regular “Good Week/Bad Week” column, the FM had this to say (verbatim): “Does Fikile Fix Fokal Mbalula really think that making motorists fork out R250 just to book a slot on the failed eNatis system will help the shambles that is SA’s driver’s licence renewal programme? We suppose it’s in keeping with a government that can introduce theft on an industrial scale at state-owned entities and then make you, dear citizen, pay for the privilege. Think of your power bills, for example. Still, more cash isn’t the answer, though it is a fantastic way of stitching up a few nice new fat tenders.”

It appears as though the pressure is mounting on our Minister of Transport. He is now faced with two options: fix the problems (of which there are many) or leave. I’m in favour of the former. We’ve had something like nine Ministers of Transport in the last 26 years … and, along the way, things have only become worse.

The solution isn’t to keep on appointing a new Minister of Transport. Instead, the current Minister of Transport should be held accountable and should simply do his job.