INLSA
The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) is planning to spend billions over time as it refurbishes and replaces its fleet of rail coaches. It is currently conducting a survey into the capability of the industrial sector to meet its needs.
This includes the necessity to ensure that at least 65 percent of the content is locally produced. The plan for the extension and advancement of rail passenger services, frankly, is quite awesome.
Considering manufacture, assembly and refurbishment, it conceives a production of some 250 coaches each year for 10 years. And that’s just the first phase.
Work has already started. A company based in Pietermaritzburg at a site in Mason’s Mill deserted by Spoornet, or whatever it was called at the time, is contracted to refurbish 30 coaches.
This work entails the procurement of a wide range of products from local suppliers, many of them within a stone’s throw of the refurbishing operation.
What has developed, quite organically and without any facilitation, is a cluster. Clusters are recognised as very significant vehicles for local economic growth.
They occur quite naturally in the sense that businesses within a supply chain are quite likely to cluster in order to maximise their competitiveness.
Sometimes, they are given facilitative impetus by local authorities that wish to accelerate economic growth by consciously attracting companies that have synergies within a particular value chain.
In view of the opportunities presented by Prasa’s plan, and several other significant factors, the nucleus of this cluster requires the attention of the Msunduzi Municipality to come up with strategies, including incentives of various types perhaps, to promote the growth of the cluster.
That rather parochial view is not exactly what Premier Zweli Mkhize had in mind when he called a meeting last week to bring this passenger rail opportunity to the notice of interested business people. His enthusiasm was for a positive response to the Prasa survey in order to establish KZN as the hub of this industrial sector.
He received a very positive response, and agreement was reached as to how companies’ ability to supply could be co-ordinated to leave Prasa in no doubt as to where their coaches would come from.
The demand will be such that clusters of this sectoral activity could also develop in other towns, possibly wherever there is land that was once a hive of Spoornet activity.
Think about it. Not only is Prasa committing itself to a vast increase in passenger rail services, but the government’s infrastructure planning includes a far more adequate provision of rail services to maximise the economic benefit of all our minerals.
At present, in several minerals, including manganese, production is limited not by the mines, but by the logistical infrastructure to carry the ore. For these developments, we need more rolling stock.
So, too, will the rest of Africa. The thrust to open up the continent by building inter-country rail links is gaining momentum.
Our very alert premier was able to conceive a link between a visit he paid to the company in Maritzburg, Prasa’s public call for participation in the survey, President Jacob Zuma’s revelations of infrastructure plans and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s Budget speech and come up with the idea that this could be a great endeavour for our province.
He was quick to point out, quite correctly, that the provincial government would provide support, but that the business opportunity must be exploited by the private sector. This is a salutary injunction, for the private sector, no less than many South Africans, has become becalmed by a tendency to rely on government, both in terms of investment and direction.
I think it is to his great credit that our premier is so economically wired, recognised the opportunity and shared his enthusiasm for it with business people in the province. But we should not have to rely on him to identify economic and business opportunities for us.
Wide open eyes, and big ears to the ground are required lest we allow our hope for the future to pass us by.
I hope that KZN business meets Mkhize’s expectations in this matter and itself seeks such opportunities in the years ahead.
