The Automobile Association (AA) has strongly condemned plans to expand the Gautrain service, calling it a financial train wreck that must be stopped.
“Any expansion of the current Gautrain service is wasteful expenditure on a service that doesn’t serve the needs of most of Gauteng’s citizens,” it says. “Spending billions of rands on extending the service must seriously be reconsidered and stopped before it’s too late.”
The Association says remarks by Premier Panyaza Lesufi that the province will invest R120bn in the expansion of the Gautrain over the next two years is cause for great concern.
“In 2021 we made a detailed submission on the extension of the Gauteng Rapid Rail Integrated Network – Gautrain – and urged the provincial government to reject any extensions of the service which we labelled a White Elephant. In our view, any extensions perpetuate a system that caters for a minority of citizens who don’t need it, at the expense of better public transport for the majority who need it most,” says the AA.
“The Patronage Guarantee remains one of the biggest issues facing the extensions and should be addressed properly before any further work on the service is done. The Patronage Guarantee is a mechanism whereby Bombela – the private concessionaire which operates Gautrain – is compensated for low ridership levels on their trains.”
According to the Gautrain Management Agency’s 2024 Integrated Annual Report, the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport paid Bombela R2 790bn in the 2023-2024 financial year, and R2.371bn in the 2022-2023 financial year in the form of the Patronage Guarantee “due to the actual revenue and ridership being significantly below the minimum required total revenue projections”. Billions of rands of Gauteng taxpayers’ money has been paid to Bombela since 2012 through the Patronage Guarantee.
The AA has questioned whether figures provided now for the justification of further extensions can be trusted given that the current revenue projections already fall way short of the mark – and have done for many years – and result in huge payouts to Bombela.
“It is quite clear that Gautrain failed to deliver on its ridership projections from the outset, and now the burden of funding falls on taxpayers – the majority of whom don’t even use the system because it’s too expensive to do so. They are, in effect, subsidising a system that caters to the elite who are already mobile. The fact that Gautrain stations have some of the biggest parking lots in the province for the vehicles of those who use the system stands in stark contrast to those who have no transport solutions at all. In addition, there is a lack of reliable, sustainable, affordable, and safe public transport for the majority of the province’s citizens, many of whom must walk to their destinations because they have no alternative.
“Of equal concern is the fact that the MEC for Finance and Economic Development, Lebogang Maile, only last week warned that the province is on the brink of potential bankruptcy because of its commitments, among other things, to e-toll debt. This sentiment does not correlate with the sentiment of the premier to invest billions of rands into what is clearly a financial train wreck for the province,” notes the AA.
The Association says siphoning money from the Gauteng roads and infrastructure budget to Bombela (effectively built-in insurance for poor performance) means other transport options are not being properly funded, again disadvantaging the majority of Gauteng’s citizens who need it most.
“We stand firm in our opposition to the extension of the Gautrain network, and the continued funding of the system through the Patronage Guarantee. A serious rethink of the expansion of the system is needed, particularly since it has shown that it cannot deliver on the numbers it projects and is, therefore, more of a liability than an asset,” the AA adds.
