Star 2024-07-17

Newly-appointed Public Works and Infrastructure Minister, Dean Macpherson, has acknowledged the slow pace of infrastructure delivery in South Africa, saying a “new vision and reality” was required if the country’s infrastructure was to be rebuilt. At the Infrastructure Africa Conference in Cape Town yesterday, his first public engagement after being sworn in as minister two weeks ago, Macpherson said he and the department did not have “all the answers” or the funding to unlock faster infrastructure development. However, infrastructure was widely understood to be the “fly-wheel” of economic growth and, “I would like to transform South Africa into a massive construction site. It is possible … ” Macpherson suggested new “funding models” would be introduced to make it easier for the private sector to invest in government infrastructure projects.…

The Ngqura Container Terminal (NCT) in Gqeberha has taken delivery of 50 new haulers to increase citrus loading rates as mid-season approaches as part of Transnet Port Terminal’s (TPT’s) focus on improved reliability and efficiency. TPT yesterday said the haulers were key in moving containers within the terminal and forming part of varying initiatives ensuring the implementation of Transnet’s Recovery Plan. It said their acquisition will also provide relief to the technical team that oversees planned maintenance. TPT managing executive in the Eastern Cape Wandisa Vazi said: “It feels good to give a performing team additional resources because we can then uphold what we have promised our customers. The arrival of these haulers will make it possible for us to achieve current financial year targets,” he said. A popular choice…

South Africa’s largest wheeling project was officially commissioned at a ribbon-cutting event in Lichtenburg in North West yesterday, allowing the SOLA Group to provide Tronox Mineral Sands with more than 200MW of clean renewable energy. The project would also see more than R200 million spent in the local economy, with hundreds of permanent and part-time job opportunities. SOLA spokesperson Jonathan Skeen said the project symbolised a significant milestone for the delivery of energy. “Today is about celebrating the milestone reached when a project of this size is officially commissioned. These are the first projects of this size that have been commissioned since the licensing cap was lifted,” Skeen said. The two plants were recently completed by SOLA outside the town of Lichtenburg, generating 126MW and 130MW respectively after construction work…

Department of Trade, Industry and Competition Minister (dtic) Parks Tau’s budget vote for the 2024/25 financial year came under an onslaught of criticism yesterday on its lack of detailed attention to reviewing the entire tariff structure, the ocean economy with its 58% contribution to the economy, industrialisation and the lack of sustained strategies to sustain growth targets and job creation. The ANC, DA, EFF and MK said the budget was lofty and called on Tau to come up with more concrete plans to address industrialisation, and job creation in particular. “We have a 51% expanded definition of unemployment … There is need for a revolutionary approach but instead the government, in creating an incentive assembly scheme where multinationals will come with no downstream impact, no jobs that come out of…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has maintained South Africa’s 2024 growth forecast below 1%, but revised downwards sub-Saharan Africa amid weaker than expected activity in the first quarter. In its World Economic Outlook, the IMF yesterday said South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) would grow by 0.9% this year in spite of the improvement in the logistics sector, supply of electricity, and the suspension of load shedding. This is the same GDP forecast that the IMF also made in April, as the country was still experiencing rotational power cuts even though they were not as frequent as in 2023. For 2025, the IMF forecast South Africa’s GDP growth to remain at 1.2% in 2025, the same forecast it gave in April. Meanwhile, the IMF said the forecast for growth in…

business industry in South Africa remains optimistic that trade conditions will improve in the next six months as expectations are buoyed by a more representative governance as per the outcomes of the general election. The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) yesterday said the Trade Activity Index reached its best level in June as trade conditions recovered gradually after starting off from a depressed-level in 2024. Sacci said the broader agreement by the Government of National Unity on the need to address economic challenges collaboratively filtered through to the trade environment. The chamber said more stable energy supply, augmented by increased electricity generation by the public and private sectors and lower fuel consumption prices over the first six months of 2024, contributed positively to trade conditions. Although trade conditions…