Ngqura container terminal privatisation put on hold

Commenting on the suspension announcement, South Africa’s Ports and Ship News said that the suspension came as no great surprise. Had the process gone through as originally publicised, Ngqura container terminal could have become the country’s first privately operated container terminal but this has to be qualified with the realisation that among the bidders it was highly likely that the current terminal operator, Transnet’s own terminal operating arm Transnet Port Terminals (TPT), would have been among the bidders.

When TPT was first constituted out of the old Portnet some 13 or so years ago with the creation of a port authority and separate port terminal operator, the intention was that TPT’s job was to operate the 16 port terminals while simultaneously preparing them for concessioning – the word ‘privatise’ not being in use because of union sensitivities. TPT was given three years in which to restructure the operational side of the port terminal businesses which would then be offered via a bidding process to private concessioners with TPT fading away, its job done.

The reality was that this was never going to go as planned. Firstly, the unions were never going to sit back quietly and allow port terminals to be placed in the hands of private operators, no matter what terminology was used. After the experience of Spoornet, Transnet’s railway division, which was later renamed Transnet Freight Rail, this should have been clear to Transnet, whose naivety was exposed in this respect.