Drakensberg Cable Car

No mention of the cable car in that article. This is good, since it would not be right to thank the cable car for the repair of the R74. The road should never have been left to get that bad in the first place, and you can't cover up bad management. Cable car or no cable car, the road needed to get fixed. And getting the basics right first goes a long way in stimulating tourism before we need to build new attractions which are exorbitantly expensive.

Here is a narrative/history of the Busingatha proposal which is kept up to date as things progress. It contains some significant details.

www.maloti-drakensberg.co.za/cableway/history.html

"The MEC firmly believes that all of us, including the DA and those who are opposed to the project, are welcome (at) the table of ideas to discuss how and what we need to do – given the changing nature of the global tourism landscape – to claim a slice of the lucrative global tourism cake.

"That demands of us the maturity to resist the temptation to engage in a daily ritual of issuing uninformed but sensational statements…

"The need to build a globally competitive tourism industry in the province is bigger than the sum total of our narrow political ambitions."

I hope these words are taken seriously by the very people that have spoken them.

Several sensational comments have been pitched in favour of the proposal which flies in the face of 20 years of majority opinion that the cableway is not the single answer to lifting KZN into tourism glory.

The table of ideas can only be effective when the alternatives are actually taken seriously and until the dogged determination to see the proposal through is dropped and a more open attitude is adopted.

In the latter half of 2013, several organisations and individuals submitted comment and expressed concern over the proposal - and requested a response. These included African Conservation Trust (ACT), Wilderness Action Group (WAG) and Vertical Endeavour (VE). We know the documents were received only due to our insistent follow up, but no reposnse was ever given.

In December 2013, the AmaZizi royal family voiced their objection to the proposal and their outrage at how it been handled. No formal, public response has been forthcoming, even after the royal family issued a follow-up statement in February 2014.

At the end of the same month, a review of the draft business plan was submitted, highlighting a number of concerns, shortcomings and critical flaws. The review was accompanied by two letters, jointly issued by ACT, WAG and VE: one expressed concern over the findings of the review and requested an urgent response. The other indicated that proper public consultation on the proposal was sorely lacking and that a number of things had been conducted in an improper manner. These documents were emailed and received (confirmed by a follow-up phone call), and paper versions were also sent via registered post (again confirmed by phone call). No response was ever received. When the review hit the media, the departmental spokesperson told the media that the business plan "would be reviewed" - this is now a year ago, and we are still waiting for a reviewed business plan.

My own emails to the departmental spokesperson have been flatly ignored - this in a long line of zero or poor communication from them, meetings called on short-notice and key groups/organisations not invited, or even ignored in the meetings.

Please see this for yourselves in the history recorded in the link posted previously, as well as in the documents which have been made public (note: this is the only place you can get all all of these documents, several of which have never been made available to the public in other other way):
www.maloti-drakensberg.co.za/cableway/documents.html

Are we really welcome at the table of ideas?

Construction of the Drakensberg cableway is pending approval and is only likely to happen once all the developmental approval processes have been done, said Bheko Madlala

Isn't construction only supposed to start once all the approval processes are complete anyway? Or is the agenda being moved forward here?

The question I have for the DEDTEA (and it is most unfortunate that they refuse to communicate with us) is: what happens if the EIA runs its course properly, and everything including the feasibility and the alternatives are looked at, and the unhampered outcome of the EIA is that the proposal is a no-go - then what, will they truly drop the project? I don't know if its just me but reading all of the statements I have read so far it seems as if they have made up their minds that this is what they want, and all assessment and approval processes are just a formality. It nullifies the "table of ideas" statement made by the same person earlier - see post #62677.