Rudi Dicks , head of the Presidency's project management office, speaks at the Investment Summit in Cape Town. From left are Stanlib's chief economist, Kevin Lings, and James Holley, CEO of Traxtion Group. By September there should be a movement to establish Transnet Freight Rail as a rail operator only, said Rudi Dicks, head of the Presidency's project management office.
The infrastructure manager will be located in the department of transport, which will own the infrastructure. Dicks said the rail network is in a dire state, with the iron and manganese line in the Northern Cape now in such a state of disrepair that it won't be able to operate without immediate investment.Transnet submitted a turnaround plan to Treasury last year, which called for an injection of R100 billion. But in last month's national budget, nothing was set aside. As government debt balloons, Dicks said it would be"very difficult" to get anything from Treasury.
Dicks says that government learned from its mistakes following a disastrous recent auction of two routes to private rail. Few companies applied, primarily because the slots were only offered for two years – which made large-scale investment risky. "That's how you make railways work, you do more with less. So that's the first thing that we can do in South Africa."