Misleading claims

The claim was made in the Business Day newspaper which stated that the freight group’s rail operations should be opened to private investors based on a Department of Transport submission to the National Planning Commission. According to the report, splitting is the remedy to the country’s transport problems.

“South Africa has an institutional structure for its port, rail and pipeline network that is internationally envied. The editorial’s claim that South Africa has the most expensive ports in the world is alarmist, careless and misleading,” said Molefe.

Molefe said Transnet was engaging the Departments of Public Enterprises and Transport on rail reform and other initiatives and that vertical separation of rail operations and infrastructure with the associated aim that liberalisation would reduce the financial burden of government-owned railroads on the public sector, is not a new concept,