ANGELIQUE SERRAO AND KRISTEN VAN SCHIE
THE GAUTRAIN’S costs have gone up about R2 billion in less than a month to more than R30bn – and it’s still months from completion.
The escalating costs were revealed in the Gautrain Management Agency’s 19th Quarterly Progress Report for April to June 2011, as MEC for Transport Ismail Vadi announced that the next phase of the Gautrain will open on Tuesday.
From August 2, commuters will be able to catch the Gautrain from the Rosebank station to Pretoria and to OR Tambo International Airport.
But the final leg from Rosebank to the Joburg CBD is not expected to open for months because of water seepage.
Whether the delays are the cause of the escalating costs is not known, but the report gives details of the finances and says the province and concessionaire are in dispute over delays in completion of the project.
The GMA report gives the Gautrain’s total cost as R30.462bn. This is made up of R26.23bn for construction and commissioning, and another R4.231bn for the GMA, land, bidding and support costs.
Of that R30.462bn, R27.298bn comes from the government, R3.16bn from private funding and another R2 million is “other private funding”, raising the total cost by about R2bn in less than a month.
The Star reported this week that an engineer’s plan to sort out the water tunnel problems between Park station and Rosebank could take 10 months and cost R100m to fix.
Until the service from Park station in the CBD to Rosebank is running, a bus service from Park station will be provided from the CBD to Rosebank.
Yesterday, Vadi encouraged Joburgers to visit the stations and buy tickets. All stations will be open to the public from today. As of Tuesday, trains and buses will run from 5.30am to 9pm.
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