The year 2021 may go down as Transnet’s worst one yet — a considerable (non)achievement, given that the rail and ports monopoly was the launchpad for state capture. A cyberattack at its ports in July, which forced it to declare force majeure, was followed by two fires this week. The FM spoke to Transnet National Ports Authority executive Moshe Motlohi.
How serious was the fire damage, and how is it affecting operations?
MM: Any form of fire that we encounter is serious; it could have been fatal — thank goodness nobody was injured or killed. We did lose some hours because we had to change the operating model. Richards Bay has seven conveyor lines and of those, two were affected by fire. We issued an instruction that all conveyor belts should be ceased [in order to] do a thorough inspection of the belts. I’m happy to say five of those belts have been reopened.
For Transnet to declare force majeure twice in three months is pretty serious — are you being sabotaged, or are your controls just that weak?
MM: For now, we don’t have information to start apportioning the reason for the incident. We’re still investigating, and setting up a board of inquiry.
Clearly, though, operationally you’re not doing great. Citrus growers were tearing their hair out over export backlogs at Durban port, for example.
MM: The citrus season unfortunately coincided with the looting, followed shortly by the cyberattacks. However, last year we [actually] had the best season for citrus exports and this year we exceeded last year’s number in terms of volume, despite all these challenges. The terminal operators, the Citrus Growers’ Association and everybody else co-operated to say: citrus gets priority.
I personally presided over meetings to say the arrival of ships and trucks would give priority to grains and citrus, because we knew we only had that short window to earn foreign currency.
[After the cyberattack] we used manual processes, which weren’t very efficient, but we are going to record the best year yet. It could have been something else and the credit should be given to those people.
On the issue of operational efficiency, we’ve been open about the fact that our ports have been faced with challenges, and as a result we have been looking at various ways of bringing about improvements.
Every day, Monday to Friday, the ports from Richards Bay to Cape Town dial in and talk to customers about how they’ve performed the previous day, and what they plan to do the next day. Every second week I chair a manco [management committee meeting] where we look at all these challenges. We’ve also gone out to market on an RFI [request for information] to see if the private sector wants to partner with us. All these efforts are intended to [ask]: how do you bring external wisdom and capacity into the system to make it better?
What kind of money shortfall do the ports have? President Cyril Ramaphosa talked about needing R100bn recently.
MM: The R100bn is the total sum of what we project at this point to create additional capacity and bring about operational improvements. Some of the new terminals that we are going to open up will be clean concessions where others come, build, operate and transfer at the end of the concession. So not all those improvements should be funded by us. We are looking at investing in a fleet renewal programme, and to improve our maintenance.
A rumour did the rounds recently that only two tugboats at Durban were operational. Is that true?
MM: Unfortunately we have seen fake news circulated. The port of Durban has 10 tugs, but five would be operating ordinarily. On the day, we had five tugs running. I can tell people that the port of Durban is operating well and does not have the situation as was depicted.
You say that, but is Durban not at real risk of losing out to other ports after these recent incidents?
MM: If you’re looking at the size of Durban vs Maputo, say, there’s no imminent risk of Maputo eclipsing [us], but there is a real possibility where people look at Maputo as an alternative. It is therefore in our interest that the port of Durban reclaims its shine. All the efforts I’ve mentioned are meant to deliver just that.
Of course, during the cyberattacks fleets had no option but to look at alternatives. We’re clear: we want to increase the capacity of the port from the current 2.9-million containers per year to 11.3-million by 2030.
That’s ambitious.
MM: Of course, much depends on how the economy performs. But we’ve put pressure in the system to deliver and that’s why we’re going ahead at the end of October with the RFI.
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