South Africa\u2019s transport minister said the nation\u2019s state-owned ports and rail operator is seeking as much as R35 billion from the National Treasury for projects through 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are going to put in requests to National Treasury\u2019s Infrastructure Budget Facility for about R35 billion, for projects going out to 2030,\u201d Barbara Creecy told Bloomberg in an interview in Cape Town on Thursday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The request will be in addition to the R13 billion that Transnet has already received from the Budget Facility for Infrastructure, including R11.2 billion to repair the iron and coal corridors and improve the efficiency of the Durban container terminal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cash will be used to finance upgrades and equipment orders that Transnet needs to turn around the company after years of underperformance and graft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fixing the company is critical to reviving an economy that has expanded by less than 1% a year on average for more than a decade, with transport constraints repeatedly cited as a brake on faster growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Transnet recently concluded rail access agreements with 11 new train operating companies that were allocated slots on its core network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The inclusion of the private operators is expected to introduce an additional 24 million tons of freight capacity to the network, which could be achieved over the next 18 months, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTransnet will probably have to spend about R35 billion to upgrade railways so that the new network operators have a chance,\u201d said Creecy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey will have to obtain rolling stock. So I expect the hoped-for increase of 24 million tons could take place in around 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other measures the state-owned enterprise is taking to improve its performance include plans to introduce a privately operated floating dock at the Port of Cape Town to expand ship-repair capacity and a \u201cport community system,\u201d Creecy said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would involve shipping agents and owners in the operations rooms of the ports, increasing coordination, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis would really be helpful for the citrus fruit sector, which usually needs to ship out containers during a potentially very windy season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transnet is seeking roughly R35 billion from the National Treasury for projects up until 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":862911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2088158944963219703","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2175702456583487","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17928431529392942","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[8452,20011,2138],"class_list":["post-870204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-barbara-creecy","tag-port-of-cape-town","tag-transnet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870204","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870204"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870218,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870204\/revisions\/870218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}