South Africa can fix backlogged ports in a year, minister says

South Africa’s ports — ranked among the world’s worst — are improving and state-owned operator Transnet SOC Ltd. will fix them within the next 12 to 14 months, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said. 

The new multi-party administration that President Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress set up after a May 29 election failed to produce an outright winner, already has a handle on power supply and is keeping a close eye on water-disruption risks, she said. 

These steps “will help stability,” Ntshavheni said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday. “As we get more control on our own domestic environment, the improvements will come.” 

An energy crisis and the collapse of rail, ports and other infrastructure — exacerbated by years of poor governance — have hamstrung Africa’s most industrialized economy. Gross domestic product expanded by an average of less than 1% over the past decade — less than needed to cut a 32.9% unemployment rate, one of the world’s highest. 

In June, a World Bank report ranked Cape Town’s container port as the worst performer among 405 assessed globally, with three others in the nation among the bottom 15. Transnet — which is under pressure to improve its performance as expotrs ranging from food to minerals have slowed due to the bottlenecks — disputed the findings. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa has said his new government of national unity will prioritize economic growth by tackling structural reform, fixing badly run municipalities and ramping up infrastructure investment. 

The government will turn South Africa into a “construction site,” he said July 18 in his first policy speech since May’s election.

To boost growth, ports should be privately run and more goods should be moved by rail rather than trucks, Business Leadership South Africa Chief Executive Officer Busisiwe Mavuso said last month.