Phase 3 of the Government-Business Partnership must now deliver the reforms needed to fix South Africa’s port crisis and open our ports to greater private participation.
President Ramaphosa acknowledged at yesterday’s launch that “the decline in rail and port performance has been arrested” and that freight volumes are recovering. But recovery off a low base is not competitiveness. The government must now turn this acknowledgement into action.
South African container dwell times and crane productivity still lag compared to other Sub-Saharan ports. Phase 3 cannot simply repeat Phase 2’s rhetoric on “outstanding reforms in energy, transport and logistics”. It must deliver dates and deliverables.
Concretely, government must: fast-track the landlord port model piloted at the Cape Town Multipurpose Terminal’s 25-year concession to Durban’s Pier 1, the Ngqura container terminal and Richards Bay; finalise Transnet National Ports Authority’s structural and financial separation from Transnet Port Terminals, promised since 2021 but still incomplete; empower the Ports Regulator with binding tariff-setting powers, independent of Transnet; and publish quarterly, terminal-by-terminal KPIs, including vessel turnaround time, gross crane moves per hour and truck turnaround time, so importers, exporters, farmers and miners can hold operators accountable.
Private participation under the landlord model keeps strategic infrastructure in state hands while introducing competition, capital and skills that terminal operations badly need. It is a practical model used successfully across Europe and Latin America.
The government has acknowledged the problem. Now Phase 3 must fix it.
The DA will use Phase 3 and the Portfolio Committee on Transport to track these commitments against hard timelines, not press-conference promises.