Transport gets scant mention in Sona

South Africa’s freight and trading industry needs to raise its profile to ensure that its voice is heard, judging by the lack of public attention it is receiving by the authorities. An analysis of the State of the Nation Address delivered by president Jacob Zuma on Valentine’s Day indicates that Government would seem to have a blind spot when it comes to freight transport and logistics. He described the five priorities of government as “education, health, the fight against crime, creating decent work as well as rural development and land reform”. Logistics is given five paragraphs, with the focus being on Gauteng and Durban in Zuma’s home province. “We have committed to improve the movement of goods and economic integration through a Durban- Free State-Gauteng logistics and industrial corridor. “In this regard, substantial work is now under way to develop the City Deep inland terminal in Gauteng. “Initial work has commenced in the expansion of the Pier 2 in the Durban Port. “And thirdly, land has been purchased for the development of a new dug-out port at the old Durban airport. “In the Eastern Cape, I officially opened the port of Ngqura and construction is now under way to develop a major new transhipment hub,” he said. “Transport” is mentioned just five times in the more than five thousand-word speech – and three of those references are to public transport. References to freight focused on bulk – which is the core business of state-owned Transnet Freight Rail: “We have to shift the transportation of coal from road to rail in Mpumalanga in order to protect the provincial roads. Thus the construction of the Majuba Rail coal line will begin soon. “To improve the transportation of iron ore and open up the west coast of the country, we have expanded the rail capacity through the delivery of 11 locomotives. The first phase of the expansion – to increase iron ore port capacity at Saldanha to 60 million tons per annum – was officially completed in September last year,” he said. On the positive side, Zuma began his speech by endorsing the National Development Plan, which was announced in August 2012 by Trevor Manuel. But the president’s speech failed to refer to the movement of goods: “The NDP contains proposals for tackling the problems of poverty, inequality and unemployment. It is a roadmap to a South Africa where all will have water, electricity, sanitation, jobs, housing, public transport, adequate nutrition, education, social protection, quality healthcare, recreation and a clean environment,” he said. The NDP itself deals extensively with the logistics challenges facing the country and recognises the need to provide business with an efficient logistics platform, and to lower the costs of transport and logistics. Zuma and his speechwriters and advisers will need to read the document again if the country is to see the more than 5% growth in gross domestic product which the president said was needed to ‘create more jobs’. “The crisis in the Eurozone affects our economy as the Eurozone is our major trading partner. “Our GDP growth is expected to average at 2.5% cent, down from 3.1% in the previous year,” he said. CAPTION President Jacob Zuma ... logistics gets five paragraphs.