Earlier this year – on 05 January – the Road Freight Association (RFA) encouraged all companies that could become a third-party operator to study the recently released Network Statement and to engage with the Department for Transport (DfT) in getting rail operations back on a viable and efficient footing.
The RFA noted that there would be many opportunities for road transporters and that there would be changes in the way in which transport functions (in the long run), but that the country needed to get the foundation pieces of the entire logistics chain running. Reliably. Efficiently. Securely. Affordably.
This past week, the Requests for Information (RFI) were issued by the Interim Private Sector Participation (PSP) Unit. The Rail Private Sector Participation Framework was adopted by Cabinet back in December 2023 and has since focused on coordinating capital investment and expertise from the private sector into the critical rail and port operations. Minister Creecy has confirmed that the PSP Unit will be hosted within the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
The RFIs are the next major step in the structural reform process to secure significant private sector participation, and which go beyond just access to slots on the rail network for private rail operators as set out in the recently released Network Statement – there are calls for interest in ports, and the operations surrounding these. The Minister noted that the DfT hoped that participation would take many different forms, including investment, concessions and more, and would be guided by responses to the detailed questionnaire in the RFIs.
Minister Creecy noted that the RFI process facilitated the collection of information by the DfT from potential private sector participants on possible projects and concession-type models. This is then used to properly inform the next step in the process, which is the Request for Proposals (RFPs).
The Road Freight Association will watch developments with keen interest – 2025 will be a crucial year in ensuring that South Africa (and thereby its economy and wealth creation for all its citizens in the form of employment) will turn around and become an invigorated and vibrant logistics hub, chain and developmental node for all modes of transport. Surely, by now, there should be no argument that road and rail can (and must) symbiotically work together.
