Transnet board confident of turnaround plan

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The Transnet board says it has confidence in the company’s business turnaround plan. Since 2017 Transnet has seen a decline in revenue collection. The plan outlines operational and financial initiatives that must be implemented to stabilise the company.

It follows the resignation of the CEO Portia Derby, CFO Nonkululeko Dlamini and more recently, the head of Freight Rail Siza Mzimela.

The key element of the plan is National Treasury’s equity injection.

The board’s chairperson, Andile Sangqu, says their aim is to recover operational volumes.

“To safeguard Transnet sustainability, effective management of capital allocation and a focus on funding that is essential for infrastructure renewal as well as proactively our outstanding debts are parts of the critical elements of this plan. We also continue to engage the private sector to improve our operational and investment capabilities and the focus remains on using the private sector partnership PSP’s as congruence to drive growth.”

Transnet’s chief executive Michelle Phillips says they have put in place security measures to fight the theft and vandalism of their critical infrastructure.

Phillips says protecting infrastructure is a huge challenge.

“On a daily basis we are challenged with individuals, criminal elements, organised crime doing the utmost to sabotage and interrupt our business for all sorts of reasons. We have to appeal to the police, crime intelligence, all of these authorities, to assist us to put an end to all of this, more especially as well to the prosecuting authorities. We cannot with all of the arrests that we have been making in the recent past, be sitting with a situation of only 3 to 4% of successful convictions.”

Spotlight on Transnet’s bold turnaround plan: Prof. Jackie Walters