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Councillors of the eThekwini municipality sharply criticized the latest progress report on the GO! Durban project during a council meeting on Thursday. The municipal Committee on Housing Settlements, Engineering, and Transport presented the report on the progress of implementing GO! Durban.

The report highlighted achievements in infrastructure provision, operational readiness, business planning, stakeholder engagement, industry transition, and institutional capacity building necessary to begin service delivery.

Project Implementation Delays

Action SA Councillor Zwakhele Mnchango called for GO! Durban to be renamed Gone! Durban. He characterized the project as one of the most costly in terms of planning and suffering from implementation delays in the city. According to him, taxpayers might see empty stations and no working buses without receiving a return on their investment.

Mnchango noted that 'this report paves the way for further expenditure without a guarantee of solving problems.' The committee provided an update on the revised corridor-based implementation strategy for Phase 1 of the Integrated Public Transport Network (IPTN) GO! Durban, with Corridor C3 (from Bridge City to Pinetown) initially designated as the operational corridor.

Corridors C1, C9, and the Inner City Distribution Service (ICDS), along with auxiliary services C2 and rail support, will follow, subject to economic viability, operational readiness, recovery, and funding availability from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).

The report also included an overview and adjustment of the Operational and Business Plan in response to the termination of the Public Transport Network Grant (PTNG). This involved aligning service levels, fleet requirements, capital commitments, operating expenses, fare revenue assumptions, and the city's financial exposure due to the reduced grant size.

Furthermore, the report outlined priority actions and timelines for the next six months to support operational readiness, risk management, completion of contractual obligations, and ensuring continuous compliance with applicable grant conditions. The municipality also reported identifying affected operators for Corridors C3, C1, C9, and the Inner City Distribution Service (ICDS) to assist in forming and concluding contracts with Vehicle Operating Companies (VOC).

The municipality intends to establish a Grant Transition Operations Group (PTOG) Framework Group and a Target Group within the eThekwini Transport Authority (ETA) to guide planning for integrating legacy public transport services and operators into the municipal public transport system.

DA eThekwini Councillor Lindal Singh stated that the project has become synonymous with delays, rising costs, revised plans, and broken promises. She emphasized that the financial implications of this revised approach remain unknown.

Singh remarked: 'Residents deserve to know why commitments and recommendations are being weakened instead of being fulfilled. After more than ten years and billions of rand spent, the original implementation model had to be abandoned in favor of a revised approach. This is an admission that the initial strategy failed.' She added that 'an additional 22.9 million rand has been allocated for yet another review and model, despite the contract being rated as poor and unachieved. The municipality seems to have refined one route: the taxpayer's pocket to the invoice of another consultant. This route, it seems, is running right on schedule.'

Jay Singh, representing the United Independent Movement (UIM) in eThekwini, stated that after approximately 9 billion rand was spent, councillors are now being asked to adopt an accessibility-based implementation model as the PTNG ceases. He asked: 'If accessibility is the guiding principle today, why wasn't accessibility the guiding principle from the beginning? Residents deserve to know what value the invested money brought, and why the project is now scaling down to one corridor when the original vision is no longer achievable.'