Life in South Africa ahead of FIFA’s World Cup 2010 is starting to look rather rosy for lots and lots of people.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell to 5,1% in March and is now within the Reserve Bank’s target range for inflation of between 3% and 6%. The drop in the CPI is attributed mainly to stable food prices along with a 5,5% reduction in prime interest rates over the past 18 months.
Economists are even predicting that the CPI will fall further later this year.
In another positive development, house prices rose by 5,6% in the final quarter of last year. South Africa is now ranked 11th on the international Knight Frank index, which measures house price growth in 47 countries around the world.
Moreover, the Knight Frank index showed that 24 other countries had seen growth in house prices in other parts of the world and this is apparently a clear indication that the global economy is recovering from the serious economic recession caused by the sub-prime lending crisis.
Interestingly, property prices in Dubai fell 42,1% in that first quarter of 2010 possibly as a result of the financial woes that have plagued this country after it said it was unable to repay a $6bn loan and had to be rescued by other member states within the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Right now, though, South Africa seems to be sitting pretty as it anticipates that more than 375,000 foreigners will be here to watch the FIFA event between May and July. These foreigners will just happen to bring buckets of foreign currency with them to spend in restaurants, shopping centres, bars and hotels around the country.
As I drive along the new roads between Johannesburg and Pretoria – a daily event for me as a commuter – I can see clear signs of real progress in the highway network. I’m eager to see how efficient the Gautrain is going to be when it starts running. If it works, then I certainly would have no qualms about using it for the daily trip because it will take just 40 minutes to speed from Rhodesfield to Hatfield.
So I was wondering what the many gloomy doom-sayers are saying today. You know the kind of stuff:
- South Africa will never be able to build the stadiums in time. Wrong.
- The Gautrain is a R30bn white elephant and will never get off the ground. Wrong.
- South Africa’s roads are so congested and snarled up that supporters wanting to watch a game will find it impossible to get to the stadium on time. Wrong.
- South Africa’s airports will never be able to handle that many travelers and it won’t even be able to carry the baggage either. Wrong.
- South Africa will never manage to host FIFA’s World Cup 2010 and Australia and Germany are making plans to host the event there. Wrong.
- A bus rapid transit system will never get off the ground and will certainly not run on time. Wrong. It’s running in Cape Town and Johannesburg and fairly soon in other centres such as Durban and Pretoria too.
I am quite prepared to admit that I am one of the first people to criticise government when I believe it has acted in bad faith or has cheated the taxpaying public. But when the government is doing something positive for its people then I certainly will praise them for making changes that improve our quality of life in this country.
And it is wonderful to witness these changes.
Yes, things are going to get more expensive in terms of toll roads – particularly when the highway between Johannesburg and Pretoria becomes a toll road – but give Sanrail its due: it’s doing an excellent job on upgrading the roads.
The new terminals at OR Tambo are excellent and the new King Shaka airport outside Durban at La Mercy has officially been opened as well, providing that city with the badly-needed infrastructure upgrade too.
So many things are changing.
Of course that doesn’t mean that we should be blinded by all these rosy-tints in our glasses. Having led by example on some of these big projects, government must turn its attention to smaller, even more frustrating issues that face the population every day? Here are a few:
- Suburban commuting: better mass transit services into the suburbs on the outskirts of many cities;
- Community policing – it's in the suburbs that so much crime actually takes place.
- Improving the commuter rail network and extending it to new areas and suburbs;
- Repairing the enormous network of provincial, urban and rural roads.
As I’ve said on numerous occasions, the infrastructure that South Africa owns must be properly maintained at all times. This applies equally to other state assets such as the electricity distribution network, the ports and railways and, most importantly, the commuter systems that service huge townships such as Khayelitsha, Guguletu or Diepsloot.
If government and the private sector can work together in a partnership that improves Gauteng’s highways then I certainly can see no reason why it can’t do the same for other projects as well. Commuting anywhere in South Africa is really awful because there is so little infrastructure.
So the taxis have to use suburban roads to get people from their homes to their offices, schools or universities. It’s a huge issue for millions of people every day – and a risky one at that given the frequency of taxi accidents.
Planners in their towers in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban need to find ways to get more people to use public transport and the only way this can be achieved is if commuters systems become safe to use.
Metrorail says it is upgrading its commuter services countrywide. However, Metrorail seems to have missed the point entirely: it needs to open new branch services to other areas of the urban sprawl that makes up each city in South Africa.
Pretoria, for instance, has no rail services to any suburbs south-east of the city centre. Johannesburg does not have railway lines that run to Randburg, Sandton, Fourways or Diepsloot. So the only option for commuters who live near or in those suburbs is to travel by road. High traffic volumes hammer the daylights out of these roads.
So I think that while government – through some of its national agencies and its concessionary agreements – has achieved some fantastic things, the fact of the matter is that this principle must be extending into other new public-private partnerships so that solutions to commuting can be found.
Somehow though, the willingness and commitment among local bureaucrats in the 283 local authorities around the country just doesn’t seem to match that of any of the national agencies.
I just wish it did because that’s the only way municipalities will deliver on the promises they’ve made.
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn’t pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at paddy@neomail.co.za.
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