By Nombini Matomela, tel: (021) 461-8145

Cape Town - Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin says the Victoria and Alfred (V&A) Waterfront development in Cape Town is up for sale.

However, he said the exact terms for the process were still before the board which did not consider the development as a core asset to Transnet.

Minister Erwin was speaking today during the parliamentary media briefing.

The V&A Waterfront is a mixed-use property development located around the historic Victoria and Alfred Basins which formed Cape Town's original harbour.

It is situated between Table Mountain and Robben Island and attracts up to 20 million tourists annually.

"We intend disposing the V&A," the minister said, adding that this move was part of government's policy to sell out all non-core businesses.

Those include plastic and protein manufacturing and business to business software companies.

He said government was considering selling out the assets entirely with no intention to retain shares in the businesses.

He also announced that government intended publishing a draft policy on safety requirements for the new taxi vehicles for public comment by end of this month, in terms of the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme.

He said the regulations would be published afterwards.

Related was the finalisation of the evaluation and assessment of the capacity and readiness of the provinces as well as the industry to implement this programme.

The department was also developing the necessary mechanisms for the scrapping of old taxi vehicles.

"We intend that the mechanisms for the physical scrapping of the old taxi vehicles and payment of the scrapping allowance to operators would be in place by July this year," he said.

Government will next month introduce to Parliament the National Land Transport Transition Amendment Bill, which is necessary for the implementation of the taxi recapitalisation programme. - BuaNews