The Democratic Alliance (DA) has long stated that South Africa’s port inefficiencies undermine economic growth and export competitiveness, with ongoing failures at the Port of Cape Town once again exposing the fragility of Transnet’s operations.
During the recent export season, failures at the Port of Cape Town cost the fruit sector hundreds of millions of rands in losses and additional transport costs. While high winds disrupted terminal operations, Transnet was not adequately prepared to recover once suitable operating conditions returned. The inability to anticipate health and safety constraints linked to wind operations, along with poor planning around staffing capacity during the festive period, points to persistent management and contingency planning failures.
There have been recent improvements in parts of Transnet’s operations, including better equipment availability and a clearer reform agenda under the current leadership. However, progress remains uneven and has not yet translated into consistently reliable port performance. Incremental improvements cannot mask the reality that the logistics system remains structurally weak.
This is not a Cape Town–specific problem. South Africa’s ports continue to perform among the worst globally. In the latest Container Port Performance Index, Cape Town and Coega ranked 400th and 402nd, while Durban placed last at 403rd. These rankings highlight how deeply entrenched the crisis remains, despite isolated operational gains.
The cumulative cost of Transnet’s failures over the past five years runs into the hundreds of billions of rands, damaging growth, jobs, and investor confidence.
The DA has long maintained that private-sector efficiency, capital, and expertise are essential to fixing South Africa’s ports. While the Minister of Transport has initiated important reform steps, the pace of implementation is far too slow, given the scale of the economic damage.
Key reform steps that must be taken include:
- The appointment of a private partner for the Cape Town bulk terminal
- The appointment of private partners at container terminals, and
- The unbundling of the Ports Authority from Transnet
Given the urgency of the crisis, all of these steps must be completed in 2026. Private-sector partners must be brought into the Ports of Cape Town and Coega without further delay.
Transnet cannot continue to rely on ever-increasing government guarantees without sustained performance improvements, or future generations will be saddled with tens of billions of rands in additional debt.