Now that the decade-long spectrum auction fiasco has finally reached a conclusion, the focus of the nation shifts to SA’s railways.

State-owned logistics company Transnet controls the country’s rail infrastructure and has by all objective measures done a remarkably poor job of managing it. In the 2020 container port performance index, compiled by the World Bank, SA’s ports dominated the lower rankings. In the 351-port list SA occupied four of the bottom five spots...