Transnet will issue a request for information this month (March) calling for proposals from private businesses regarding potential private/public investment partnerships to revive the country’s rail network.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy, speaking during an ENCA interview on Sunday, said the state-owned entity would issue the request for information to the private sector for all the country’s freight lines.
“That's the coal line, the manganese line, the iron ore line and the related ports of Richards Bay, Ngqura, PE, Saldanha Bay, and of course also the container line, which carries 65% of our non-ore freight. That would be the line that runs from Gauteng to the Port of eThekwini (Durban),” Creecy said.
“We're saying to the private sector, tell us what you would want to do in terms of investing and partnering with government. It includes the possibility of concessioning our lines. It also includes the possibility that we could be looking at the development of our container ports to ensure that South Africa becomes a regional hub for container export,” she said.
Creecy added that the latest reforms at Transnet, which include new public-private partnerships, aimed to protect the public interest and organised labour while enabling the “private investment that we desperately need so that we can reach our ultimate objective over the next five years of moving 250 million tonnes of freight on our rail infrastructure”.
However, she said that road transport would remain a critical part of the country’s freight logistics network.
“In any freight logistics system, trucking has an important role to play … the problem is that a lot of our minerals, which should be on rail, are now going on trucks. We know there have been long queues on the highway and queues at the border going to the Port of Maputo,” she pointed out.
“We want to try and get our bulk commodities back onto rail, our cars back onto rail, and of course, also general freight, because then it makes it much cheaper for companies doing business. And of course, when it's cheaper to do business it's cheaper for the consumer, and it's more possible for companies to make a profit.”
