The government is squandering a golden opportunity to turn the Port of Cape Town into a jobs bonanza, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said on Tuesday.
Resolving ongoing capacity problems and inefficiencies at the port could benefit the regional economy to the tune of 20,000 additional direct and indirect jobs and R6bn in additional exports, according to a recent research report, the mayor said.
The port alone could generate an additional R1.6bn in additional taxes by 2026, he added.
Hill-Lewis maintains the port’s true potential could only be unlocked via private investment, of the kind already tackling other challenges such as power generation and provision of social housing. But rather than accelerate public-private partnership, the national government appeared intent on creating another state-owned entity, as outlined in the South African Shipping Bill, he said.
“If you want to improve efficiencies in any aspect of the South African state — whether it’s the electricity grid, the postal service or the ports — you have to turn to public-private partnerships,” the mayor said in his opening address at the Ports and Customs Week conference on Tuesday at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Port of Cape Town ‘could generate an extra 20,000 jobs’, says mayor
Image: 123rf/Michael Jung
The government is squandering a golden opportunity to turn the Port of Cape Town into a jobs bonanza, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said on Tuesday.
Resolving ongoing capacity problems and inefficiencies at the port could benefit the regional economy to the tune of 20,000 additional direct and indirect jobs and R6bn in additional exports, according to a recent research report, the mayor said.
The port alone could generate an additional R1.6bn in additional taxes by 2026, he added.
Hill-Lewis maintains the port’s true potential could only be unlocked via private investment, of the kind already tackling other challenges such as power generation and provision of social housing. But rather than accelerate public-private partnership, the national government appeared intent on creating another state-owned entity, as outlined in the South African Shipping Bill, he said.
“If you want to improve efficiencies in any aspect of the South African state — whether it’s the electricity grid, the postal service or the ports — you have to turn to public-private partnerships,” the mayor said in his opening address at the Ports and Customs Week conference on Tuesday at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
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“The state does not have the expertise, the capital or, it seems, the motivation to halt the slide at any of the entities it runs. The dire state of our SOE finances should put to bed any notion that the state can fix what the state broke.”
The port is a crucial trade gateway, he said, particularly for agricultural exports but bottlenecks and inefficiencies damage future growth prospects.
“For a country that relies so heavily on trade and exports, it is critical that we are able to move our produce through our ports as smoothly and quickly as possible.”
“That’s particularly true here in the Western Cape, where agriculture plays such a dominant role in growing our economy and creating jobs. This province accounts for almost a quarter of all agriculture jobs in South Africa, and almost a fifth of the value of the sale of agriculture-related goods and services.”
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