Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) has said that it will need around R24 million to replace more than 12km of electric cables it lost due to vandalism and theft during the recent 12-day workers’ strike.
The state-owned logistics firm experienced a spike in incidents of cable theft and infrastructure vandalism due to low levels of security staff during the strike.
The group said that most of the cable theft occurred on the container corridor – which runs between commercial hub Johannesburg and the port of Durban.
During a media briefing yesterday, TFR CEO Sizakele Mzimela said cable theft increased dramatically during the strike, and it had continued to “seriously hamper” the movement of trains.
Mzimela said TFR had suffered critical theft to infrastructure and cable theft, with the line between Ladysmith and Pietermaritzburg said to be the hardest hit, especially in the Mooi River area.
“The one area of concern is the container corridor where we experienced an abnormally high level of theft incidents during this period and they have been continuously repeating,” Mzimela said.
“So we are able to move trains up to a particular level and it’s a stop-go operation at this stage because once we have cleared the cable further up, we will find another incident of theft of cable.”
TFR managing executive for container corridor Rudzani Ligege said cable theft was going to hit the group in the pocket, but this had not moved it from delivering the expected volumes for the year.
“We are looking at a 22% increase in cable theft just on the container corridor over the course of the strike,” Ligege said.
“It will cost us R24 million to replace the stolen wires. The theft of our cable has had an impact, but we are still anticipating delivering 60 million tonnes of freight this year.”
TFR acting chief commercial officer Bonginkosi Mabaso said they did not anticipate an increase in the level of theft during the strike.
However, Mabaso said Transnet had since beefed up security on the container corridor with additional personnel deployed, drone capacity deployed and additional task teams assigned with engagements with police leading to arrests.
“We have assembled law enforcement agencies and have since beefed up our security to ensure we recover the cable and make arrests,” Mabaso said.
“Our efforts in bringing down levels of cable theft are bearing fruit as we are putting more effort into shutting down cable theft syndicates, as evidenced by some of the recent arrests. These efforts are ongoing, and we hope to arrest the scourge of cable theft.”
The bottlenecks to Transnet’s operations has severely affected the mining industry as it loses on exports, with local miners failing to capitalise on elevated commodity prices.
Transnet has struggled to maintain volumes owing to Covid-19 absenteeism, a lack of parts and equipment, and persistent theft and sabotage perpetrated by criminal gangs.
Though Transnet said it would not predict when operations would be brought back to pre-strike levels, Mzimela said they were slowly returning to normal operations following the suspension of the strike.
Mzimela said they had managed to clear some of the backlogs and resume operations to some of the key corridors, including the coal, iron ore, north and east corridors.
“Most corridors have now returned to normal operations and the volume of performance on Sunday was over 100% for corridors such as the north corridor and the ore corridor. We are beginning to see pick-up as well from the other corridors,” Mzimela said.
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