SOUTH Africa’s rail networks and infrastructure have been devastated by the theft of copper cables and vandalism to the extent that “there is nothing left to steal anymore“, panellists said at the launch yesterday of the white paper on the National Rail Policy.
This as South African companies have reported billions of rands in lost revenues and exports due to Transnet’s failing rail network, knocking the country’s economic growth at a time it can not afford to do so after the wrecking ball of Covid-19.
The industry, which admitted the crises at the launch of the paper, said it was imperative that ways be found to halt further deterioration while funding models for the extensive rebuild, possibly involving the private sector could be looked into to revitalise the networks.
Rail Safety Regulator CEO Tshepo Kgare in a panel discussion, said, “Revialisation of the rail networks is a priority. There is total devastation of the networks, there is nothing left to steal anymore, it is imperative that we find ways of halting the decline and restore the integrity of rail.“
As much was admitted by Minister for Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan, who in his address, said that the theft of Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and Transnet infrastructure was of great concern.
“The thefts are a concern, it is an increasing area of focus for law enforcement,” Gordhan said, who recently called for the ban of exports of scrap metal as a means to address the carnage on rail infrastructure.
About 1 000km of copper cable used to power electric locomotives have been stolen, to date, in the financial year ending on March 3, Transnet reports.
This is a significant increase on the 700km of cable stolen in the 2020/21 financial year and the 395km of cable stolen in the 2019/20 financial year. To help secure its infrastructure, Transnet is spending R1.6 billion on security in the current financial year. It is spending a further R400 million on replacing stolen cables.
Power utility Eskom recently said it loses up to R2bn a year to cable theft. Platinum mines report losses of up to R15m a day from cable thefts underground at a shaft if protesters block roads and prevent worker access.
Speakers said that with some organisations, including Prasa, the amount of money spent on protecting the infrastructure was so much that on the balance sheet it looked like it was their core business. This when they should be improving the efficiency of transporting passengers.
Among the ideas that floated around over copper cable theft included the collaboration of the different operator’s war rooms, bringing in the army to help monitor the networks as well as co-ordination of the various security clusters including Crime Intelligence.
Gautrain Management Agency CEO Will Dachs said, “We could benefit from copper being classified as a metal that is most valuable, have more restrictions on exports, regulating the sale and use of copper, and even bringing the military to help stabilise the networks. The army could be brought in to help and then be taken out. We have a crises, this is war and we are not winning it,” he said.
Dachs said the 80km Gautrain line was under siege until at the level 5 lockdown to regulate Covid 19 and the agency put a lot of boots on the ground.
“We had an average of one attack a night. We had to increase our vigilance until we gradually brought it down significantly,” Dachs said.
Department of Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said the corporate sector needed to come to the party to bolster efforts to deal a decisive blow to the criminality that was enabled by scrap metal dealers buying stolen materials.
“We must eliminate this perverse incentive by banning export of scrap metal and therefore limit the market that aids criminality. We are unequivocal in our call to ban export of scrap metal and will support any measure that will bring us closer to this reality,” Mbalula said.
The industry hailed the white paper as the best thing to happen to the more than 150-year-old industry, which had operated in silos all along but that policy certainty from the document would help bring in investment.
Mbalula said the National Rail Policy was to guide the building of the local industry capacity, including manufacturing and localisation.
“The government will ensure that industrialisation and the local production of steel and other inputs, rail lines and supplies and rolling stock is promoted through policies that will require state and private operators to procure all supplies from South Africa based manufacturers,” he said.
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