President Cyril Ramaphosa says state capture is among the causes of the government’s delay in dealing with the challenges faced by the state-owned entity, Transnet.
Ramaphosa was addressing the media following a visit to Richards Bay port amid concerns about the backlog at the port and truck congestion.
His visit comes after Transnet’s decision to suspend the receiving of goods via road transport into the Richards Bay Mineral Port Terminal.
The decision to halt the receiving of these goods came after the uMhlathuze Municipality threatened to litigate the government and Transnet, citing that they have lost millions of rands managing the congestion.
“Yes it has taken some time … diagnostic process had to take place and some of the challenges we are dealing with have been in the making for quite a while. Part of them were part of the state capture process that we have been through and we are now into top gear and we are going to resolve this problem,” explains Ramaphosa.
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa says consequence management and accountability processes are currently underway for those responsible for what he says are attempts to collapse the entity.
“We are in a process where we are looking at the capabilities of the people who are working for our state-owned enterprise. The minister and the key executive are involved in that. So we are not going to let sleeping dogs lie, we are going to go into a deep process of examining the capabilities of some. Those who are clearly not meeting those capabilities. We must deal with that problem.”
