The South African government was close to a decision on rail restructuring, South Africa’s Public Enterprises Department director general Eugene Mokeyane told parliamentarians on Tuesday.
He said: ”Government is gearing towards a policy decision to move forward with rail restructuring and the underlying restructuring models.”
Speaking to the National Assembly public enterprises portfolio committee Mokeyane said the government was carrying out investigations on ways to deal with the light and low-density network and a draft national and provincial strategy for branch lines was being developed.
One of his deputy directors general, Portia Molefe, said her department had been engaging with Transnet — the umbrella transport utility — ”to get to a point where they see themselves as a transport company” and which was not competing with the private sector.
Starting from the position that the rail infrastructure should remain wholly-owned by the state, government’s logic was that there were ”opportunities for bringing in private sector participation” in the operational side of Spoornet, the state rail utility.
Molefe suggested that the private sector was ”particularly good” at handling intermodal functions — including shunting and splitting up a train into various areas.
Spoornet was good at moving the train ”from point A to point B” but it was ”less efficient” at intermodal points.
She told parliamentarians: ”We are saying all of the rail infrastructure [should] be centrally held by the state but [as to] how maintenance happens … we are still in conversation with Spoornet as to how the exact model going forward [would work].”
In August Transnet reported a net loss of R6,33-billion for the year ended March 30 from a R421-million loss in the same period a year ago. Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said recently he would be able to report by November on the way forward for Transnet — along with SAA and power utility Eskom. – I-Net Bridge
The group reported an operating profit of R187-million from an operating profit of R5,088-billion a year ago. Spoornet reported a R668-million loss and South African Airways an R8,73-billion loss ($6,197-billion a year before). – I-Net Bridge