Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has welcomed the commitment expressed by the national Department of Transport's director-general James Mlawua to gazette the National Land Transport Strategic Framework this year and that the devolution strategy would be a key feature of the framework.

Mlawua was quoted from prepared remarks for the Africa Rail Conference in Johannesburg.

"We are relieved to hear confirmation from the Transport director-general of progress towards gazetting a Devolution Strategy within 2023. It is now critical that there is political will to follow through on devolution of rail to capable metros.

"The City of Cape Town is keenly awaiting President Cyril Ramaphosa’s response to our invitation for a joint working committee to get devolution done in the shortest time. We owe it to residents to act swiftly, given the desperate need for an affordable, safe and reliable rail service in Cape Town," Hill-Lewis said.

"Our rail feasibility study, which charts the way to devolution, has found that lower income households will save up to R932-million a year with an efficient passenger rail service in Cape Town. Our research also shows that functional rail will sustain more than 51 000 jobs and add R11-billion to the local economy each year.

"As a capable metro preparing to take over passenger rail, we are keen to provide input to national government’s forthcoming rail devolution strategy and to complete our own feasibility studies in consultation with national colleagues. If we don’t complete this critical preparation now, it will take many years still to devolve rail and we don’t have the luxury of that time," said Hill-Lewis.

Cabinet passed the White Paper on National Rail Policy in May 2022, which commits to devolving rail to capable metros and producing a Rail Devolution Strategy in 2023.

The city wants a devolution commitment directly from the President given the dire need for a functional rail system in Cape Town, Hill-Lewis said.