Calls for privatisation in South African ports grow, with a leading supply chain management company publishing a study backing the move
A study has concluded that stalling over the privatisation of Cape Town’s port facilities will only delay the inevitable and rob the country of financial benefits.
Link Supply Chain Management, owned by several of the Western Cape’s leading fruit exporting companies, including Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing, highlighted the significant advantages achieved through port privatisation across Africa.
The group said the findings underscored the urgent need to privatise the port of Cape Town to unlock similar benefits for the Western Cape economy.
“Our study has proven that South African ports will eventually be privatised, and delaying the process will only delay sure economic benefits,” said Chris Knoetze, managing director of Link Supply Chain Management. ”All should be done to fast-track the process.”
According to Danica Potgieter, logistics coordinator at Link Supply Chain Management, privatisation had redefined port operations across Africa.
“Major hubs like Tema (Ghana), Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire), Tanger Med (Morocco), and Lomé (Togo) transitioned from slow, congested state-run systems into globally competitive trade engines shortly after privatisation,” noted Potgieter.
”Meanwhile, South African ports like Durban and Cape Town continue to struggle with delays, inefficiency, and infrastructure bottlenecks – costing the economy and weakening trade competitiveness.”
Potgieter said that across the continent, privatisation had consistently led to crane productivity improvements, increased investment, reduction of dwell time, higher throughput and enhanced regional integration.
“Privatisation has also sparked broader benefits, such as job creation, improved trade competitiveness, and strategic management,” she noted.
“The key drivers of these changes include successful global operators with KPI-driven operations and performance incentives; infrastructure upgrades such as deeper berths and new terminals; investments in modern cranes, yard systems and RTGs; as well as digital cargo tracking and smart port systems.”
Potgieter found that African countries took an average of 30-50 years to privatise their ports after gaining political independence, but once these ports opened their doors to private-sector partners, the transformation was “rapid and undeniable”.
