Transport minister Fikile Mbalula announced on Thursday that Cape Town’s central commuter rail line would be fully suspended and R1.4 billion spent on restoring it.

The aim is to have it fully operational again by April 2021.

Mbalula also announced that from July, 80 buses would be made available to carry commuters, who would normally use Metrorail’s central line.

Metrorail’s central line runs from Cape Town central station to Chris Hani station in Khayelitsha. The line carries 40% of the city’s commuter traffic, but the equipment and infrastructure serving it had been “vandalised beyond repair”, said Mbalula. 

He was addressing media with PRASA administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo after travelling on a dilapidated carriage on the central line.

Mbalula said PRASA had spent roughly R170 million on repairing substations and overhead lines but far more work was needed to make the vital commuter artery, which passes through 20 stations, functional again.

The next three months will be dedicated to PRASA working to restore “order and security”, and the next six months will see the implementation of projects that had been sitting in the pipeline.

This would include building four-metre high walls to protect infrastructure and serve as a boundary for railway land.

When service is restored along the length of the line, there wIll be a train every 15 minutes at peak times and every half an hour in off-peak hours.