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SA Policy Space
2026-W39·

This week in SA reform — rail access is signed; operation is not

All 11 train operating companies allocated capacity now hold rail access agreements; the Transport committee takes up port performance; 9 research papers added.

Movements

Data ahead

Official statistics due between 2026-09-28 and 2026-10-04, and the reforms they bear on.

Paper notes

Johannesburg Matters: Kickstarting Delivery – Joburg’s Mission Critical jobs

Ann Bernstein; Stefan Schirmer · CDE · 2026-09-15

Johannesburg's collapse in service delivery stems primarily from placing political loyalty above competence in senior appointments, and cannot be reversed without correcting this. Since 2016, the city has churned through nine mayors and eight coalitions, leaving at least seven of its 24 most senior management posts filled by acting appointees. None of the Johannesburg Water board members is a qualified engineer, and the city's own annual reports flag chronic vacancies among engineers, finance professionals, ICT specialists, project managers and supply-chain experts. CDE identifies a short list of mission-critical roles the next administration must fill on merit: the city manager, senior officials, and the leadership of Johannesburg Water, City Power and Pikitup. Parties contesting the November election are urged to commit publicly to competence-based appointments and to bar political office-bearers from procurement and operational decisions. Fixing Johannesburg's administrative core is a precondition for any wider municipal reform agenda in South Africa.

South Africa's port logistics infrastructure

Janet Wilhelm · TIPS

South Africa's port logistics system charges among the highest tariffs globally while delivering service quality that lags international benchmarks, eroding export competitiveness and blunting the impact of industrial policy. Container handling costs, vessel turnaround times, and rail-port integration have deteriorated to the point where previously acceptable standards can no longer be sustained, with knock-on effects for mining, manufacturing, and agricultural exporters reliant on efficient sea freight. Structural causes include the vertically integrated Transnet model, cross-subsidisation between port divisions, underinvestment in equipment and dredging, and weak regulatory oversight by the Ports Regulator. Reform options canvassed include corporatising the National Ports Authority, opening terminal operations to private concessionaires, revising the tariff methodology to reduce cross-subsidies, and strengthening independent regulation. For South African reform, functional ports are a precondition for reindustrialisation, export diversification, and meaningful participation in African and global value chains.

Idea of the week

Transport logistics remains the binding constraint on South African growth, and rail is where the constraint bites hardest — chrome and manganese from the Northern Cape and North West have been the clearest casualties. Which is why the quiet completion of rail access agreements with all eleven train operating companies allocated capacity on Transnet's network matters more than the headlines suggest. In 2022, no private operator had access to the network. Today, every allocated slot is under contract.

The third-party access regulations were finalised in December 2024; the agreements followed under Operation Vulindlela Phase II. This is the core Phase II rail deliverable, and it has landed. The obvious caveat: allocation is not operation. Services are not expected to run until April 2027, and the deeper structural reform — separating Transnet Freight Rail's infrastructure management from its train operations, so the incumbent is not both landlord and competitor — remains unfinished. A vertically integrated monopolist administering access for its rivals is a governance arrangement that ages poorly. See the full idea page for the regulatory architecture and the separation timeline.

Watch two things next. First, whether the Transport Economic Regulator publishes access charges that private operators can actually finance against — the number, not the principle, determines whether trains move. Second, any cabinet signal on the timeline for institutional separation of the Infrastructure Manager from TFR operations. Without the second, the first is a lease from a reluctant landlord; with it, South Africa has a rail market.

Constraint check-in

Transport logistics stays binding, and the rail access agreements do not change that on their own terms: they move no tonnes until services start. Transnet's own results put rail volumes at 151.7 million tonnes in 2023/24, 160.1 million in 2024/25 against a 170 million target, and 167.9 million in 2025/26. That is a recovery, but 170 million has still not been reached, and volumes remain well short of the roughly 226 million moved in 2017/18. The access side of the constraint is now largely settled — Freight Rail Third-Party Access and the National Rail Policy White Paper both sit at implemented — while the institutions and assets behind it are not: operationalising the Transport Economic Regulator and the Port Productivity Improvement Programme are both still under review, at feasibility 3. The idea page's own assessment is that network reliability, not access rights, becomes the binding constraint by 2027. The full picture is on the theme page.

Parliament's attention this week went to ports, not rail. The Portfolio Committee on Transport sat on 22 September 2026 (/meetings/7099) on the National Ports Authority's first-quarter 2026/27 performance and developments at various ports, alongside the Department of Transport's fourth-quarter 2025/26 performance. PMG has not yet posted its report, so the harvest had nothing to judge the sitting on and linked it to no idea. The same gap hides the rail file: the committee took Transnet progress on private rail operators and the road-to-rail strategy on 9 June 2026 (/meetings/5291) and its report on the Transport Economic Council on 26 May 2026 (/meetings/4596), but with no meeting report on file neither is linked, and the most recent Transport sitting linked to a transport-logistics idea is still 15 October 2024 (/meetings/6558). Watch whether the NPA presentation, once the report is up, carries terminal productivity figures against target and a date for the Durban and Ngqura container-terminal concessions — the port deliverable still outstanding — or reports progress in commitments rather than moves per hour.

Auto-drafted 2026-09-28T12:59:40Z. Window: 2026-09-21 → 2026-09-27 (7 days). Data snapshot: 2026-09-28T12:58:33Z.

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Data as of 2026-09-28 · latest PMG meeting 2026-09-28