Ekurhuleni to be SA’s biggest inland port

The port, which will be located south of Vosloorus along the N3, will be called the Tambo Springs Inland Port and is expected to create thousands of jobs, boost rail and transport freight in the region and in turn, boost the country’s economy.

Ekurhuleni, Transnet and the Gauteng government signed a Memorandum of Understanding on October 25, which kick-started the project.

“Tambo Springs Inland Port has huge implications when it comes to the Gauteng city region concept in terms of infrastructure development and in terms of the number of jobs that will be created by this inland port. What you should be thinking is that the same way you have a Durban port. The difference is that you don’t have water here everything is inland,” says Metro spokesman Sam Modiba. Acting CEO of Transnet Freight Rai, Siza Mthethwa says the ports will integrate the disconnected industrial and logistics activities in Gauteng.

“Our imports and exports are increasing, so the current facilities cannot take the added volumes. There is a congestion as we speak you can see it at City Deep lots of trucks on the road and this is an upgrade of those terminals to cater for higher capacity,” Mthethwa says.

“We are looking at significantly increasing the air transport movements in and out of Ekurhuleni. There is creation of jobs through extensive labour during the constriction phase and obviously when the ports is up and running we are looking at about 10 000 jobs in the area,” says Head of Transport in Ekurhuleni Yolisa Mashilwane.

The port is expected to be fully functional in 2017. It will provide warehousing, and distribution, manufacturing and shipping services, purportedly with enhanced supply-chain and operating efficiencies.