Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has announced the appointment of Alec Moemi as the new director-general of the Department of Transport, effective August 1.

Moemi was the former director-general of the Department of Sports and Recreation.

The Transport Department has been without a full-time director-general since 2016.

Speaking at a media briefing late last month, Mbalula indicated that he had asked the new director-general to immediately prioritise issues that impact on the department’s employees and the filling of critical vacancies, 21 of which are senior management posts and six deputy director-general vacancies.

“The appointment of boards and CEOs in the various entities of the department is an equally urgent task to be undertaken to ensure stability and strengthen governance,” he indicated.

Mbalula also said that the implementation of the commitments he made during his Budget Vote speech last month had been packaged into the Annual Performance Plan and a ‘100 days plan’, which focuses on accelerating interventions.

He flagged as urgent the implementation of interventions aimed at addressing critical challenges facing the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).

“A decisive intervention to turn PRASA around and improve its operational performance, while rebuilding its engineering capacity to drive the modernisation programme, is in place. This intervention is driven through a steering committee and a Ministerial war room, which will play an oversight and enabling role in the turnaround strategy.”

To ensure passenger and user safety, Mbalula indicated that the director-general had been tasked with developing an all-encompassing national policy on safety and security concerning public transport, which had to lead to direct insourcing of at least 80% of security personnel by PRASA, with these security officers to receive basic training from the South African Police Service.

With regard to a planned United National Transport Union-led railway safety strike, Mbalula indicated that the department had mitigation measures in place to deal with the strike and to ensure that it was conducted safely.

With regard to public transport, Mbalula indicated that the department would be operationalising integrated public transport networks or bus rapid transit systems across five additional cities – Mbombela, eThekwini, Rustenburg, Polokwane and Mangaung – over the next nine months.

The Revised Taxi Recapitalisation Programme was also expected to go some way towards improving public transport in the country.

Mbalula noted the department’s continuing concern that Cape Town commuters on the N2 bus corridor remained without a proper bus system, owing to internal disputes.

“I am working with the Western Cape [Transport] MEC to find a lasting solution to this matter as quickly as we can and I call on all parties involved to put people before profits.”

In Gauteng, the department is focused on funding the first phase of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project and resolving the issues around e-tolls.

“We are confident that we will meet the end-of-August deadline to place on the table a viable option on how to resolve the challenges facing us insofar as e-tolls are concerned,” said Mbalula.

He also reaffirmed the department’s commitment to driving transformation.

With regard to road safety, the implementation of a 24/7 shift structure within the traffic law enforcement fraternity was a key priority that was receiving urgent attention, said Mbalula.

He also emphasised on rooting out corruption in all areas of the department.

Further, the restructuring and turnaround of the Road Accident Fund would be another priority for the department, which would be reintroducing the Road Accident Benefit Scheme Bill to Parliament to expedite this process, among other interventions.