{"id":52617,"date":"2014-02-03T14:51:14","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T12:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=52617"},"modified":"2014-02-04T08:42:05","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T06:42:05","slug":"planes-trains-and-broadband-in-sa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/52617\/planes-trains-and-broadband-in-sa\/","title":{"rendered":"Planes, trains and broadband in SA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of public enterprise, <a title=\"Malusi Gigaba\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2863-Malusi-Gigaba\">Malusi Gigaba<\/a> says that power utility\u00a0<a title=\"Eskom\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2987-Eskom\">Eskom<\/a> will be investing over R500 billion in the next five years, whilst <a title=\"Transnet\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/4521-Transnet\">Transnet<\/a> will be\u00a0investing over R300 billion over seven years.<\/p>\n<p>He said that\u00a013,125 km of fibre optic cable will also be refurbished and strengthened by 2020 for improved and\u00a0enhanced\u00a0broadband.<\/p>\n<p>The minister was speaking at the The New Age\u00a0&#8211; SABC business briefing on Monday (3 February).<\/p>\n<p>The South African economy is projected to grow at 2.8% in 2014 and more than 3% in 2015\/16, the minister said.<\/p>\n<p>The key driver of that growth is capital gross formation from both public corporations, private\u00a0enterprises including the general government, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To-date, our State-Owned Companies (SOC) have acted as catalysts for additional investment in\u00a0the economy boosting our economic gross capital formation to 4.4% of the GDP.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gigaba noted that\u00a0three years ago, the department&#8217;s portfolio of\u00a0SOC invested R53 billion; but in the current financial year, it will invest over R113 billion, an increase of over 100%, he said of Eskom and Transnet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is important to get a tangible understanding of what this money will buy, Gigaba said.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the department&#8217;s existing plans, by 2020:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An additional 11,719 MW will have been added into the electricity system and 6,596 km\u00a0of transmission network installed to support security of supply;<\/li>\n<li>Existing logistics corridors will be expanded upon and new corridors will have been\u00a0established, and 1,317 new locomotives and 25,000 new wagons will have been procured,\u00a0and procured in a manner that puts in place a world-class, export-oriented, rail\u00a0manufacturing sector;<\/li>\n<li>6,405 km of rail will have been replaced for the general freight, coal and ore lines,\u00a0increasing the rail network capacity by 149.7 million tons; and<\/li>\n<li>13,125 km of fibre optic cable would have been refurbished and strengthened to ensure\u00a0carrier grade status and our broadband network would have been expanded to include\u00a0metros and under-serviced areas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Access to affordable broadband is critical for the\u00a0integration of informal and mainstream economy improvements in access to quality\u00a0education and health care,&#8221; Gigaba said.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that the dramatic increase in rail infrastructure and rolling stock will have a positive\u00a0effect on the country&#8217;s roads and reduce the burden currently carried by many roads as a result of heavy\u00a0cargo transported by road instead of rail.<\/p>\n<p>This would lead to fewer accidents caused by poor and degraded roads, the minister said.<\/p>\n<p>And with additional\u00a0infrastructure capacity would also come additional jobs, Gigaba said.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Transnet\u2019s operational and capital expenditure activities were associated directly and\u00a0indirectly with the employment of 205,000 people;<\/li>\n<li>By 2017, Transnet\u2019s activities will support the direct and indirect employment of 330,000\u00a0people;<\/li>\n<li>In 2013, Eskom accounted for the direct and indirect employment of 290,000 people;<\/li>\n<li>By 2015, Eskom will support the direct and indirect employment of 430,000 people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_52621\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Malusi-Gigaba.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52621\" class=\"size-full wp-image-52621\" alt=\"Malusi Gigaba\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Malusi-Gigaba.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Malusi-Gigaba.png 600w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Malusi-Gigaba-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-52621\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malusi Gigaba<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Small business<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gigaba said that Eskom and Transnet have both identified specific areas of recurring and consistent operational\u00a0expenditure which they will leverage to create opportunities for small businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Eskom, he said, has set itself the target of spending over R24 billion a year on black youth-owned\u00a0businesses by 2017.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In addition, Eskom will be using different contracting methodologies to ensure that small<br \/>\nbusiness get partnered with and receive practical support from established businesses.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>SAA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Loss making national carrier SA Airways will return to profitability, Gigaba.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Last year, we said we expected that the airline will continue to make losses over the next three to five years&#8230;but we will turn the corner as we move to improve and ensure that the turnaround strategy is implemented.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>SAA suffered a loss of R900 million in 2012\/13, it was announced on Thursday.\u00a0Government made a guarantee to SAA to enable it to operate.<\/p>\n<p>The airline reported a loss of R1.25 billion in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Total revenue rose to R27.1 billion in the year under review from R23.9 billion in the previous financial year.<\/p>\n<p>This was due to increases in airfares, passenger revenue and capacity.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reporting with Sapa<\/em><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More South Africa&#8217;s infrastructure<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"MTN partners with City Power for infrastructure\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/52469\/mtn-partners-with-city-power-for-infrastructure\/\"><strong>MTN partners with City Power for infrastructure<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"How SA operators can save 27% in infrastructure costs\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/41369\/how-sa-operators-can-save-27-in-infrastructure-costs\/\"><strong>How SA operators can save 27% in infrastructure costs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eskom will be investing over R500 billion in the next five years, whilst Transnet will be investing over R300 billion over seven years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1164,26,2075,2138],"class_list":["post-52617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-eskom","tag-headline","tag-malusi-gigaba","tag-transnet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52617"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52659,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52617\/revisions\/52659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}