A presentation by Prof Jackie Walters (Head: Department of Transport and Supply Chain Management: UJ) at the Transport Forum Month of Transport Celebrations 1 October 2015 hosted by University of Johannesburg.

The theme for the event was: “Trends in Policy Development for Transport” and the topic for the presentation was: “Transport policy developments over the short to medium term.”

Notable quotes from Walters’ speech:

“Many of the initiatives could have unintended consequences.”

“Industry has to be wary of some of the proposals. Some of them mean more governmental intervention in the economy or more regulation, [which is] not always grounded in [the] reality of how business functions in a competitive local, regional, national and global economy.”

“Quite often regulation is not the right way of going forward and meeting these challenges”.

“I believe there is not enough private sector participation or [there’s a] participation framework that is restrictive and non-conducive to investments.”

“Wrong policy instruments increase the cost of doing business and harm the country’s competitiveness.”

“It’s very important to engage with the [policy] documents.”

“State-owned entities have a lot of political support, so it’s very important to also see that interaction between the SOE’s and the private sector and the role foreseen for the private sector.”