Storms in SA’s ports: Why Transnet’s failure is costing industry dearly
For years South Africa’s ports have been labouring under capacity shortages, underinvestment and poor equipment maintenance. It’s costing the economy billions
In late November the fruit-growing industry waited nervously as quality-grade produce sat in the port of Cape Town, getting older by the day. It was the beginning of the export season, a time when farmers rush to get their fruit to overseas markets. But there was a problem. Out at sea there was a traffic jam: reefer ships, meant to take the fruit to market, sat anchored as they waited their turn to come in to port.
“We couldn’t get [the produce] from the ports into the vessels. We needed to move the product through the [cold] chain in two to three weeks, not four or five weeks,” Anton Rabe, executive director of the deciduous fruit body Hortgro, tells the FM...
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