Speaker, through you to the Minister, I'm sure you must be as concerned as I am at the continued inability of the department to spend its operational budget over the past two years. Much of this can be attributed to the delays in the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme and the continuous vacancy rate, which exceeds 40%. Roll-overs of R386 million should never have occurred if proper public transport policy and planning was in place.
Let me focus on the R300 million that has been appropriated for bus subsidies. Almost 20% of the department's budget goes to bus subsidies, if you take out the Gautrain cash cow. Yet, according to the National Household Travel Survey, the nodal share of buses for the journey to work has fallen from 12% in 1997 to 9% in 2003; it could be even lower now. The reason for this is that very few or no bus contracts have been awarded since the mid-1990s.
Transport authorities are few and far between and municipalities in general have failed to co-ordinate formal operators, joint marketing initiatives, improved scheduling or the introduction of thorough or multiticketing systems - all important issues to ensure that an integrated public transport system is in place. Furthermore, Minister, operators have been loath to purchase buses considering that some 39% of that purchase once goes back to the state in the form of VAT and import duty.
Bus commuters, therefore, are not happy with bus services being offered to them and - again according to the National Household Travel Survey - they claim that there are not enough buses available. Often enough they are not there at the right times and travel time is too long and expensive.
My question, therefore, Minister, is threefold: Has your department done any research into the effectiveness of the subsidies, much of which go to the wealthy operators and very little to people such as our pensioners and unemployed who really need it - in other words, the commuter?
Why is it, then, that the buses are being used less, and yet more money ends up going into subsidies? And will you investigate the exclusion of VAT or import duties on these bus purchases? Thank you.