Hon Deputy Chairperson, hon Minister, Deputy Minister and hon members, on Tuesday during the Budget Vote debate on Energy, and this morning during the Budget Vote debate on Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, we noted with pride the very successful local government elections in which our communities have gone against international trends in respect of voter turnout and came out in their numbers to vote for parties and local representatives of their choice.
We stated before, during and after the elections the message we heard from our communities was that they expected better services now. The state of the roads infrastructure came up very strongly, especially before the elections when, at times, in violent public protests in which the anger about the state of the roads infrastructure was central, properties of councillors and public property were destroyed. We want to register that we condemn the destruction of public property as well as the private property of councillors.
We say again that we intend to respond with unquestionable commitment to the demands of our communities for better services. It became very evident during the period before the elections that communities do not know or care which sphere of government is responsible for which road. From their point of view, all roads are physically in a municipal space, and therefore the municipality must account. Intergovernmental co-ordination is nowhere more important than it is in the roads sector.
We as the SA Local Government Association, Salga, would like to request the Minister please to add the following matters to the list of priorities for this year. The first matter is the finalisation of the roads proclamation. The approximately 221 000 kilometres of roads remaining unallocated between the provinces, districts and local municipalities means that the monitoring of the conditions and maintenance of this vast portfolio of the roads infrastructure falls between the cracks.
The second matter is the funding of rural roads. We appreciate the steps that the Minister has taken in launching the S'hamba Sonke project. But we understand that this focus on secondary roads means that this programme is about only those roads that are the responsibility of the provinces. This does not include municipal roads, mostly access roads.
With the exception of tolled roads, the roads infrastructure is generally funded from tax. In the case of local government, this tax is property rates tax. In the rural areas there is no property rates tax payment. The national fiscus, on behalf of poor households, contributes a limited amount in the form of the municipal infrastructure grant for the provision of basic services infrastructure, including basic levels of roads infrastructure. This means that those households that are not reflected in the Statistics SA data as poor, as well as business, do not contribute to the costs of providing roads infrastructure in their areas.
Therefore, urban ratepayers and poor rural households who are paid for by the national fiscus have to carry this unfair subsidy burden to the rural middle- and high-income households and businesses. Unfortunately, a municipality cannot overtax those urban ratepayers, leading to the situations in which there is no financial provision for investment and maintenance of the rural roads infrastructure except for the small contribution made by the national fiscus on behalf of poor households.
Ironically, middle- and high-income households and businesses are the most vocal in their demand for good quality roads because of the impact it has on their vehicles. We, as Salga, would like to request the Minister to work with us and National Treasury to find a solution to this challenge of funding the rural municipal roads, such as access roads.
With regard to the issue of public transport, we appreciate the strides taken in respect of supporting implementation and the roll-out of the Bus Rapid Transit System in four cities. However, some of the cities have indicated concern that the rapid transit system has been reduced to a bus modal transport system. Where a city prefers a rapid transit system that is not anchored on a bus system, for example rail, this does not appear to find favour with some of the departmental officials.
In addition, in the past financial year, a budget was provided for interventions of a similar kind in 12 district municipalities, but there has been no progress in this regard. We would like to appeal to the Minister to attend to the above matters in respect of the Bus Rapid Transit System.
In terms of open road tolling in and around metropolitan spaces, the view of local government is that charging the users of infrastructure for the use of such infrastructure is an acceptable means of revenue collection. That is what we do on a daily basis. However, we are concerned about how this principle has been applied in the case of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, the GFIP. Municipalities believe that the application of road-user charges for the use of toll roads should be preceded by detailed studies and analysis of, amongst other things, how the proposed tolling will affect communities in the nearby areas, including access to public transport, to other life opportunities such as health centres, and opportunities of employment or education; and the extent to which there is likely to be diversion of vehicles onto the municipal road network and the impact of such diversion.
These studies should form the basis for decision-making regarding whether to toll a road or not, or determining mitigating measures against the negative impact if the tolling has to go ahead. In the case of the GFIP, Salga has not seen any of these studies being published and/or used as a basis for public consultation. The introduction of road tolling should be linked to viable alternatives in terms of alternative roads or alternative modes of transport for those who will be affected by the road tolling.
Municipalities believe that the impact of the diversion of traffic from the tolled roads into local roads, in terms of congestion and costs of maintenance, has been assessed and provision has been made to ameliorate this in terms of the municipal roads network, which was not designed to carry such heavy traffic volumes. We wish to request the Minister to engage meaningfully with us in this regard. In conclusion, after the recent elections, the majority of councillors who will be members of mayoral committees responsible for roads or members of council committees on roads are likely to be new councillors with no previous sector experience. This creates a desperate information asymmetry between the administration and councillors and leads to poor oversight and poor decisions by council structures, such as mayoral committees, executive committees, or council committees. There is a need to empower these councillors.
We appeal to the Minister to include, on his list of priorities this year, an induction programme for members of mayoral committees responsible for roads and members of council committees responsible for roads.
Siyabulela, Sihlalo. [Kwaqhwatywa.] [Thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]]