‘Beneficiation must be the key focus'

Beneficiation of commodities in South Africa prior to export must be the focus as the country moves towards positioning itself more competitively in the global market. Herbert Msagala, general manager: operations for Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA), says transformation of the supply chain should be an important focus for all role-players in the industry and finding answers to how to achieve this should be on everyone’s agenda. “We build and export vehicles in the Eastern Cape for Germany and then we buy them back and sell them in South Africa at three, four times the price they were manufactured at locally. It does not make sense,” he said at the monthly Transport Forum in Saldanha Bay. “We export raw iron ore to the East and then import the manufactured product back into the country at cost. We must look at our manufacturing sector and see how we can develop it and how we can bring about beneficiation of our commodities locally prior to export.”