Work on Durban’s port shows that South Africa’s efforts to improve its infrastructure are yielding results, President Cyril Ramaphosa says in his latest letter to the country.
The president noted that ports and cargo handling were an issue of concern for business, and that Durban’s port had ‘in recent years’ fallen from first position in Africa to third, after Tangiers in Morocco and Port Said in Egypt.
Where the country’s ports failed to operate efficiently, they imposed large knock-on costs throughout the economy.
Progress had been achieved in the turnaround times of trucks operating through the port. The reliability of cargo handling equipment had improved from 80% to 95%. Upgrading the port would require new investment of some R100 billion over the ‘next decade and more’. ‘This,’ the president said, ‘will completely transform the port, expanding its capacity for container handling from 2.9 million units to more than 11 million units.’
The state had prioritised infrastructure development in its growth strategy, and Operation Vulindlela was much seized with repairing the decay at Transnet.
Concluding his letter, the president said that the work on the port showed that South Africa was equal to the scale of its ambitions.
‘With the progress we are making with the Durban Port, with the invigorated skills and capabilities we have in Transnet, we now have wind in our sails. And we are moving at a rate of knots towards our destination.’
[Image: FinlayCox143, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53004355]