The more than R100bn financial support package that Transnet has asked the National Treasury for includes a R47bn equity injection or loan, and for the government to take over R61bn of the company's debt.

The Transnet board has a turnaround plan that it believes could help arrest the state-owned transport group's decline, help it return to profitability by 2025 and make its rail and port operations reliable for SA's economy.

But there is a caveat: the plan can only succeed in turning around Transnet's operations and fortunes if the government gives it a taxpayer-funded bailout, or what the company's board calls a "capital injection".

The Transnet board has come up with a 31-page turnaround plan that requires funding of more than R100-billion from the National Treasury over the next two years. Transnet wants an immediate release of cash from the Treasury amounting to R3.4-billion before the end of its financial year in March 2024.

The more than R100-billion financial support package includes a request for the Treasury to provide Transnet with R47-billion in an equity injection or a loan that can be converted to equity if the state-owned enterprise (SOE) demonstrates progress in turning its operations around. By this point, the SOE has even committed to start paying the government in the form of dividends.

The second part of the support package includes the Treasury taking over a portion of Transnet's total debt of...