By: Times Live

Transport minister Barbara Creecy says the government will update the network statement, published by Transnet Rail Infrastructure Manager in 2024, to bring pricing stability and certainty to the logistics sector.

The minister was delivering a keynote address to a meeting of Exporters Western Cape at the Nedbank Auditorium in Cape Town on Tuesday night. The address came as logistics faced shocks related to trade fragmentation and geopolitical tensions, including the US-Iran war.

“In the next two weeks we will issue the second version of the network statement. That is going to give the new price for which operators can carry different goods, including Transnet itself. 

“What is important about the network statement is that it is designed to give certainty to new freight operators that they can borrow the finances they need to equip themselves with the freight and rolling stock they need to enter into operations,” she said.

In December 2024 the government introduced the first network statement, which provided private operators with price options. There were a lot of debates within the interim regulator regarding the development of the network statement, Creecy said.

“There were even more debates in Transnet. But we had made an undertaking to the president that by December 31 2024 the network statement would be out.”

She said Transnet immediately began the process of opening up transport operations to private operators. Halfway through last year it was announced 11 private operators had been selected, and recently the names of the private operators were announced.

The minister said the future of rail in South Africa is the general freight business but this was undermined by geopolitical tensions, including around the Strait of Hormuz transit hub.

“Involvement in the international maritime operation means when a ship is in distress, you have to take it. It doesn’t have a booking. It’s huge. It takes up three berths. It pushes out the guys who do have a booking and should be in. 

That is a complex business to make money from because it’s unplanned.

She said in the next five years, South Africa can strike a good balance between road freight and rail freight.

On logistics reforms, she said the National Rail Policy and the Freight Logistics Strategy are two documents adopted in 2022 and 2023, but they are not law. 

“The reforms I’ve been speaking about will be enshrined in the Rail Bill so they become law.”

She said she hoped by July or August she could take the bill to Cabinet and put it out for public comment.