13 December 2007
Today marks the start of a count down towards the completion of the construction of the Gautrain rail link. The tunnel boring machine we are commissioning will help to speed up the progress of construction the rail link and ensure that we finish the work on time and within the budget.
Looking back at when we started talking about the Gautrain to today, we are left with one dominant impression - which is that we have indeed walked through a minefield to reach each milestone. It has not been easy but it has been exciting. There were many doubting Thomases and we always had to tread very carefully, engage every stakeholder, satisfy the most onerous legal requirements and above all, we had to keep it all clean. We have achieved all that.
Today there is overwhelming public support for the Gautrain project. A perception audit conducted between September and October this year indicates that 75.5% of people say the Gautrain will transform the image of public transport and 70.4% say they will likely support the train.
This is indeed encouraging especially when one considers that the project has received accolades from other quarters as well. The South African Association of Consulting Engineers awarded the 2007 Visionary Client of the year to Provincial Government in recognition of this project; and the International Association for Public Transport awarded Gautrain's kiddies website one of the three international prizes in youth marketing for promoting the use of public transport to the youth.
Since the start of the construction, the Gautrain has succeeded in creating jobs, reducing poverty, imparting skills and transferring wealth of small and emerging entrepreneurs. We have created more than 5 400 direct jobs, with about 3 000 being historically disadvantaged people. It is estimated that the project will have sustained and/or created more than 29 400 direct, indirect and induced jobs by the end of the 2007/08 financial year.
Since construction commenced in September 2006, more than 100 women have been awarded learnerships and more than 3 300 unskilled staff and semi-skilled staff have attended training courses to improve their skills levels.
Trainees are also undertaking training at Further Education and Training (FET) institutions in order to develop scarce skills in the construction and civil engineering fields.
Under the banner, Woza Ekhaya, Gautrain joined hands with other business members of the Homecoming Revolution. So far, Gautrain has been successful in convincing 37 local construction professionals who left South Africa to work in the United Kingdom to return to South Africa. About 20 of these recruits are considered as previously disadvantaged individuals, i.e. women and persons of black, coloured and Indian origin.
These are not mere numbers. They are lives changed for the better in our unrelenting push to reduce poverty and unemployment.
The Gautrain project has injected R440 million into the economy so far this year through the purchase of South African materials and equipment. Small medium and macro enterprise have gained R70 million for providing goods and services required on the projects. Again these are not mere figures, it is wealth generated in our drive to ensure accelerated economic growth.
The project is also succeeding in drastically altering the future of urban development in our province. With each of the ten stations attracting the interest of big business and residential developers, spatial planning will never be the same again. With integrated, fast, reliable and safe public transport becoming a reality, spatial development spin-offs will have sustainable long-term economic benefits for the province. Suburbs and cities are already undergoing major upgrades, restructuring and rejuvenation.
The tunnel boring machine we are launching here today is an indication that the project has now reached a point of no return. From January, when the tunnel boring machine goes underground we will be able to move faster to the realisation of our goal. As it is a tradition on projects of this nature we have to give a name to this equipment before we submerge it in the belly of the earth where it will remain and never come out again.
As progressive people, who understand the central role that women play in the development, as people who value the leadership role that women have played to bring our country where it is today and knowing the enormous contribution they are making on this project and in our national life, we are naming this machine Imbokodo. This is in salute to the women who marched to Pretoria on 09 August 1056 chanting: "Wathinta Abafazi, wathinta imbokodo. (You touch a woman, you strike a rock).
Chauvinists who in this day and age still oppose the ascendancy of women into positions of power and influence should heed the warning that the women of 1956 issued to the JG Strydom that: "you touched women, you have unleashed a boulder, and you will be crushed".
Those of us who believe in gender equality and women emancipation will not fail or falter in our efforts to ensure women continued to play a central role in the development of our province and our country.
I thank you.