After years of wanting to do everything by itself, the second Ramaphosa administration is finally admitting that the national government needs better private sector relations to solve the country's logistics needs.
After years of wanting to do everything by itself, the second Ramaphosa administration is finally admitting that the national government needs better private sector relations to solve the country's logistics needs.
Read Treasury's 83-page medium-term budget statement at your leisure (for real, it's actually quite illuminating, with none of the usual pomp and obfuscation) and you'll find a lot of admission. The biggest has been a trend across all the GNU minister briefings - that the government must mobilise private funding to achieve its big, hairy, audacious goals.
Chief among those BHAGs? Fix the state logistics sector. "Additional allocations through the budget facility for infrastructure (BFI) include expanded support for... the reinstatement of freight rail operations to transport high-value minerals to ports," wrote the Treasury in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS).
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Water and sanitation projects in Polokwane are accounted for, but the biggest infrastructure spend is on Transnet.
"Transnet has stabilised volumes, but requires investment. We have committed to do that on a project by project basis," director-general Duncan Pieterse explained in answer to Daily Maverick questions about the expanded contingency and treasury bonds.
Good progress, but the road is still long
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