Light at end of Gautrain tunnel

2009-07-02 18:03

Johannesburg - The Gautrain is quickly nearing completion and may even be ready for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the Gautrain Management Agency said on Thursday.

The agency intends to complete the train and begin testing the track a month before the cup starts.

"We are trying to get the two aligned and we are trying to accelerate," the agency's CEO Jack van der Merwe told journalists in Johannesburg during a tour of the project.

However, he cautioned that the Gautrain's usefulness would be contingent on supplementary public transport programmes such as the Bus Rapid Transit system and the taxis.

One challenge remaining was a threatened strike by the National Union of Mineworkers.

Van der Merwe said negotiations were being left to the company's organising body, the South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors.
 

- SAPA