Pretoria - Claims that South Africa's ports are the most expensive in the world are misleading and careless, Transnet Chief Executive Brian Molefe said on Thursday.
This comes after a report in the Business Day newspaper on Wednesday, stating that the freight group's rail operations should be opened to private investors based on a Department of Transport submission to the National Planning Commission. According to the report, splitting is the remedy to the country's transport problems.
"South Africa has an institutional structure for its port, rail and pipeline network that is internationally envied. The editorial's claim that South Africa has the most expensive ports in the world is alarmist, careless and misleading," said Molefe.
Transnet said it strives for a world class logistics network.
Molefe said Transnet was engaging the Departments of Public Enterprises and Transport on rail reform and other initiatives that have an impact on the parastatal.
The company said vertical separation of rail operations and infrastructure is not a new concept, with the associated aim that liberalisation would reduce the financial burden of government-owned railroads on the public sector.
Molefe said although this was "superficially attractive", government imposed rail open access has failed to accomplish all of the goals set for it anywhere in the world.
"International experience has demonstrated that separating operations from network management and infrastructure generally has not produced desired results."
According to Transnet, the editorial did not acknowledge the aging infrastructure due to decades of under investment. The company added that it has improved its operational efficiency, including improving transit times for containers between Johannesburg and Durban from 38 hours to 16 hours.
"A recent World Bank survey of international freight forwarders ranked the South African freight system 28th out of 155 countries. And it was found to be the best performing amongst middle-income countries. It also found that South Africa's port performance was higher than average," noted Molefe.
"The key issue for SA and Transnet is lowering the total cost of logistics."
