The Democratic Alliance has renewed pressure on Transport Minister Barbara Creecy to accelerate long delayed reforms at South Africa’s ports, warning that persistent inefficiencies are inflicting serious damage on the economy and undermining the country’s export competitiveness.
DA member of parliament and spokesperson on transport, Chris Hunsinger, raised the alarm this week, pointing to operational breakdowns at several ports, with the Port of Cape Town emerging as a major concern during the most recent fruit export season.
According to the party, failures in port operations translated directly into lost revenue, higher logistics costs and missed export opportunities for one of South Africa’s most valuable agricultural sectors.
“Failures at the port cost the fruit sector hundreds of millions of rands in losses and additional transport costs,” Hunsinger said.
While adverse weather conditions such as strong winds played a role in disrupting operations, Hunsinger argued that Transnet’s response exposed deeper structural weaknesses.
“While high winds disrupted terminal operations, Transnet was not adequately prepared to recover once suitable operating conditions returned. The inability to anticipate health and safety constraints linked to wind operations, along with poor planning around staffing capacity during the festive period, points to persistent management and contingency planning failures,” he said.
Hunsinger acknowledged that some progress has been made under the current Transnet leadership, citing improvements in equipment availability and the emergence of a clearer reform agenda.
However, he cautioned that these gains remain inconsistent and have yet to translate into reliable port performance across the system.
“There have been recent improvements in parts of Transnet’s operations, including better equipment availability and a clearer reform agenda under the current leadership. However, progress remains uneven and has not yet translated into consistently reliable port performance. Incremental improvements cannot mask the reality that the logistics system remains structurally weak,” Hunsinger said.
The DA stressed that the crisis extends well beyond Cape Town. South African ports continue to rank near the bottom of global performance benchmarks. In the latest Container Port Performance Index compiled by the World Bank and S&P Global, South Africa fared poorly among 403 ports assessed worldwide.
In the 2024 rankings, Cape Town placed 400th, Coega, also known as Ngqura, ranked 402nd, while Durban came last at 403rd.
Despite these alarming positions, the index did highlight notable year on year improvements at Cape Town and Coega between 2023 and 2024.
Cape Town recorded the largest improvement globally, gaining nearly 240 points, a turnaround attributed to investments in new equipment, expanded warehousing capacity and the introduction of predictive weather modelling. Even so, the DA argues that these improvements remain fragile and insufficient given the scale of the challenge.
“The cumulative cost of Transnet’s failures over the past five years runs into the hundreds of billions of rands, damaging growth, jobs, and investor confidence,” Hunsinger said.
Central to the DA’s position is its long-standing call for greater private sector involvement in port operations. The party maintains that private capital, skills, and operational expertise are essential to restoring efficiency and reliability.
“The DA has long maintained that private sector efficiency, capital, and expertise are essential to fixing South Africa’s ports. While the Minister of Transport has initiated important reform steps, the pace of implementation is far too slow, given the scale of the economic damage,” Hunsinger said.
Among the key reforms proposed by the party are the appointment of a private partner for the Cape Town bulk terminal, the introduction of private partners at container terminals, and the unbundling of the Ports Authority from Transnet. Hunsinger stressed that timelines must now be accelerated.
“Given the urgency of the crisis, all these steps must be completed in 2026. Private sector partners must be brought into the Ports of Cape Town and Coega without further delay,” he added.
Hunsinger also warned against continued reliance on government financial support without measurable performance improvements.
“Transnet cannot continue to rely on ever increasing government guarantees without sustained performance improvements, or future generations will be saddled with tens of billions of rands in additional debt.”