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At a packhouse at Blydevallei Boerdery, near South Africa’s eastern border with Mozambique, workers pluck unripe grapefruit off a conveyor belt. It’s the best chance of getting them to export markets thousands of miles away before they spoil.
The citrus farm is just one of many fruit producers in South Africa threatened by the near collapse of the state rail and ports company, Transnet. Instead of railing its grapefruit, lemons and oranges to the port of Durban, it sends them on 20-hour truck trips. Then they can spend days in queues outside the harbour before being shipped to countries such as South Korea and nations in the Middle East.
“There’s no Transnet, that’s the problem,” says a visibly agitated Gert Cloete, the operations manager at the packhouse, as he watches over teams of workers clad in blue overalls from his mezzanine office and explains how refrigerated trucks can sit in queues of as many as 400 vehicles at the port. “You never seem to win. It’s quite frustrating.”
The chaos that’s enveloped Transnet — beset by corruption, theft and dilapidated equipment — is the biggest threat to a rare economic success story in South Africa’s ailing economy. While the inefficient rail lines and ports have sent coal and iron ore exports to multi-decade lows, agricultural products last year hit a record US$13,2 billion.
Now the fruit industry, which makes up a third of farm exports, is in peril as well.
“South Africa is not deemed to be a reliable, on-time supplier anymore and suffered great reputational damage,” said Fhumulani Ratshitanga, chief executive officer of Fruit South Africa, which represents farmers. “In meetings held with various retailers in the UK, Germany and the US, among others, late last year, the condition of South Africa’s logistics emerged as a significant concern.”
The gravity of the situation was spelled out in last month’s release of an annual World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence report on container-port efficiency. Cape Town ranked last out of 405, while Ngqura, another facility used to ship South African fruit, was second worst. Durban came 398th.
– Moneyweb
Online Reporter