Urgent reforms of South Africa’s logistics network are needed to address growing challenges negatively impacting the export of minerals out of the country, says President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Delivering the keynote address on the second day of the annual ‘Investing in African Mining Indaba’, Ramaphosa said reforms were necessary to improve the operating environment, and logistics was of critical concern.
“Logistics is a huge problem for the mining industry. By way of example, in 2022 coal exports through the coal terminal in Richards Bay dropped to about 50 million tons, the worst performance since 1993,” he said. “The infrastructure inefficiencies have resulted in a 15% decline in mineral savings. This concerns us.”
Ramaphosa said partnerships such as those between the Minerals Council and Transnet were moving in the right direction as it was critical to stabilise and restore the operational performance of the rail lines and ports.
“The reforms we have already announced to improve the state of rail and freight are moving ahead. One of these programmes is opening the key routes to third-party rail operators and will bring much-needed investment for the upgrading, maintenance and rehabilitation of the rail network.”
At port terminals, third-party operators were also being brought on board. “Government is demonstrating it is open to working with the private sector and that when we cooperate we can achieve great results to the benefit of the entire country.”
