Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan says he is confident Transnet’s board understands the scale of challenges confronting the freight and logistics company. 

The board has his full support in its efforts to come up with the requisite remedial action, he added. 

Gordhan said this on Tuesday, noting correspondence from the Association of South African Chambers (ASAC), whose members have called for decisive action to resolve issues affecting the economy because of the state-owned company’s underperformance. 

The correspondence followed a directive Gordhan gave the Transnet board about three weeks ago to urgently make recommendations to address a range of operational shortcomings, the minister said. 

Transnet’s recently announced annual financial results made it clear the entity required urgent and serious interventions to address the root causes of deficiencies that are negatively affecting the economy and South Africa’s export competitiveness, added Gordhan.