Push for regional rail autonomy

The Western Cape governmentis keen to take up the offer by Transport Minister Barbara Creecy for private sector involvement in rebuilding South Africa’s rail capacity.There has been a long-standing campaign by the City of Cape Town to take over the running of the metropolitan passenger rail services, which have been dysfunctional for years.The provincial government is also keen to take over the freight rail operations in the province.In his response to the request for information (RFI) by Creecy, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said, “this is good news for our economy and makes it easier for more businesses in our province to thrive and create more jobs for our residents.“For far too long these critical logistics sectors have been ignored and allowed to fall into disrepair and dysfunction, to the detriment of South Africa’s economy.”The Western Cape government,through its Growth for Jobs strategy, aims to triple exports to R450 billion and increase private sector investment to 20% of the province’s GDP. “To achieve this, we must have fully operational harbours to drive economic growth and job creation,” said the premier in a statement.Mobility Minister Isaac Sileku said there was a good business case for taking over certain rail operations.“On average, the Northern Cape to Saldanha corridor transported 50.85 million tons of iron ore and 4.4 million tons of manganese between 2022 and 2023. Therefore, this move will present immense opportunities for private investment in rail.” ER