Cape Town Port shows slight improvement in world ranking - private management now critical, says Mayor

Amy MacIver (in for CapeTalk's John Maytham) interviews the Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill Lewis.

The Port of Cape Town has finally shown some improvement in the World Bank’s world port efficiency ranking

In the latest Container Port Performance Index (the 2024 CPPI) the port gained the most points globally.

While this is to be welcomed, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis points out that Cape Town Port has moved up from last position to still only 400th out of 403 ports.

RELATED: New, high-tech cranes set to improve efficiency at Cape Town port

He believes strongly that private sector management is urgently needed to consolidate this improvement.

"While it is a marginal improvement only, the bottom line is that we have seen some effort from the new Transnet management to try and address the inefficiencies at Cape Town Port and I think it's only right to recognise those.... but we are simply not going to move into the top half of that ranking by doing the kind of marginal, piecemeal improvements that are currently underway."

Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor of Cape Town

The Mayor notes that there are a number of companies around the world who specialise and he is one of the proponents of privatising the actual running of the port.

An efficient port is essential for job-creating growth in the region, he emphasizes.

"That’s why we're calling for the urgent completion of the national government’s Request For Information process on private sector partnerships for the Port of Cape Town. To keep making progress, we need continued investment in port upgrades alongside more private sector involvement in running the port."

Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor of Cape Town

Citing research from the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism, Alderman James Vos (Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth) has highlighted that an efficient port could create 20 000 new jobs, add R6 billion in exports and over R1,6 billion in new tax revenue.

While Cape Town should see further rankings improvement thanks to Transnet’s ongoing R3,4 billion capital investment, they are still some way off being globally competitive however.

Echoing the Mayor's point, Vos says this shows the need for new infrastructure to be complemented by private sector leadership in the port operations.

Scroll up to the audio player to hear more from Mayor Hill-Lewis