Early evidence of devolving transport functions in the north west province: a task team approach

Abstract

Devolving transport functions is a broad institutional reform programme that is aimed at enabling municipalities with appropriate capacity to implement transport policy outputs. Through the Provincial Transport Forum in the North West Province a task team was formed in early 2017 and mandated to establish transport components as a first step to devolution. This paper reports on the task team’s efforts to establish components and outlines practical variants of the tactics applied across four district municipalities. Two research questions are explored: (1) How do municipalities translate municipal transport functions into actionable funded activities? (2) Is there evidence of various entry points to devolving transport functions? This paper is a unique and practical contribution to transport regulation literature in intermediary towns. Technical policy implementation challenges, and opportunities from officials involved in the task team are synthesised. Navigating between capacity limitations it seems that public officials balance administrative objectives parallel to political, and stakeholder complexities. The results of the Task Team approach enabled the establishment of two components one parallel to a rapid transport agency; another through Integrated Development Planning budgets. Another municipality establishes a District Transport Forum first. The paper proposes an applied approach to transport policy implementation with the Transport Components Task Team as a catalyst.