Strike or not, Transnet matters

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Of the state institutions that were gutted during the state capture saga, two stand out: Transnet and Eskom. Through just these two entities alone, the state haemorrhaged more than R50-billion. 

Today, we feel the effects of the latter entity’s capture acutely almost every single day, making Transnet feel like a distant problem that may or may not come right. But this week something shifted.

It is difficult to escape pronouncements of how bad the economic fallout of the Transnet strike will be. Estimates have put the industrial action’s cost at between R1-billion and R8-billion a day. 

No matter which way you cut it, South Africa’s economy simply cannot afford to lose more than it already has. But, on the other hand, neither can workers, who — knowing the cost — have chosen to strike as an absolute last resort.

The strike has presented a good opportunity for various stakeholders to jostle for support. Exporters need you to know how bad the crisis has hit them. Transnet needs more money and support. As do workers, who have been desperate for the government to fix its mess.

But, in truth, Transnet started costing the economy long before the strike forced us all to pay attention. 

In the last year, coal prices have soared to levels not seen in a decade, as Europe’s energy crisis intensifies. Although this has been a boon for South Africa’s coal miners — who could soon see their businesses stamped out in the green economy — they could have raked in a whole lot more had exports not been hamstrung by operational constraints at Transnet. 

Mining revenues have also been a godsend to the public purse. Thanks to the commodity boom, the treasury has managed to find much-needed wiggle room when the country gravely needed it.

After the July riots, which tore through the country’s economic hubs, the commodity windfall meant the government could not plead poverty when it was clear that what it needed to do was put cash into people’s hands.

Although rehashing the state capture saga now seems like an easy out, especially for the government and the embattled chief executives of our state-owned entities, it is true that we are still counting its cost. 

The rot went far deeper than those villains of state capture may have ever imagined. 

Not only was state capture the cause of operation-killing maintenance backlogs and cultures of impunity, seemingly at all levels of the public sector, it is also at the centre of our distrust in the state’s ability to keep the bottom from falling out. It is why, when state-owned entities fray, our outrage is always tempered with a feeling of utter dejection.

But, like it or not, we need entities such as Transnet and Eskom to work. We shouldn’t ignore their slow deterioration, nor should we allow them to be sold for parts to the highest bidder, leaving us at the mercy of a just as compromised private sector. 

State-owned entities such as Transnet are the heartbeat of our economy — as are South Africa’s workers, who, like the rest of us, feel the sting of the failing state. Pay attention to Transnet, even in times when workers are not the face of its crisis.