All I want for Christmas

Every December, as we wrap up the year’s final issue of FOCUS, we traditionally celebrate the captains of industry. This year is no different. What is different is the level of frustration and anger I feel as I write this final editor’s note of 2025.

The reason for my wrath? Our dysfunctional transport and logistics infrastructure. All I want for Christmas is a transport and logistics infrastructure that works. I’m not asking for Scandinavian-level efficiency or Japanese-style precision. Just a system that works at a basic – but truly competent – level. Is that really too much to ask?

I don’t think so. I would like to encourage you to read our articles about two captains of industry and dear friends of mine: Nick Porée and Mike Fitzmaurice. They show that the problem we have in this country is not a lack of talent, expertise or commitment. We have people who have given their entire lives to improving transport and logistics. Yet these people – who genuinely make things happen – remain unsupported, underpaid and often ignored. And those who preside over broken, indebted state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reward themselves with multimillion-rand packages for achieving absolutely nothing at all. The contrast could not be more infuriating.

The ones who deliver – time and time again

Take Nick Porée, for instance. His contribution to South African freight policy is so vast – so intertwined with the very architecture of our logistics system – that it is almost impossible to quantify. He has shaped national strategies, trained thousands of industry professionals, designed transport qualifications, supported regional harmonisation efforts and spent years valiantly trying to help government departments salvage their own policy failures.

When interviewing Nick, I mentioned that he has achieved so much. “Not as much as I would have liked to,” he responded. “At the tender age of 86, I still hope to see South Africa catch up with the developed world when it comes to road freight, borders, railways, ports and road safety. This could happen if someone in government actually reads the many reports I’ve produced from 1985 to 2025…”

Then, consider Mike Fitzmaurice. When it comes to cross-border trucking, Mike is “The Man”. He can walk into any border post in Southern, East or Central Africa and instantly identify the bottlenecks, risks, procedural gaps and opportunities for practical reform. He has spent decades improving cross-border operations, harmonising systems, strengthening corridor performance and helping transporters clear the logjams created by policy missteps and bureaucratic inertia.

His work is not abstract, it saves both hours and money; it keeps trucks moving and supply chains stable. His influence is felt directly by thousands of transport operators and indirectly by millions of citizens.

Mike and Nick are not just captains of industry. They are builders, reformers, stabilising forces in a sector battered by incompetence and disorder. They do the work. They solve real problems. They deliver.

And what do they get in return? Certainly not riches. Definitely not recognition commensurate with their impact. And absolutely no support from the institutions that should be working alongside them.

The other side of the coin…

Sharmini Naidoo’s exceptional article, Piercing the SOE veil, is a masterclass in contrasts.

While Mike and Nick quietly fix crises and implement practical solutions, the leaders of our major SOEs – entities that control the backbone of South Africa’s transport and logistics ecosystem – preside over chronic collapse.

What Sharmini catalogues is staggering:

• R521 billion in bailouts over 15 years – probably closer to R670 billion when accounting for patchy reporting.
• CEOs earning R8.5 million to R15.5 million a year – despite leading organisations that lose billions, fail audits and deliver no measurable improvements.
• The essentially insolvent Road Accident Fund paying out R6.74 million in performance bonuses.
• The South African Post Office (SAPO), Denel, Transnet, Eskom and others continuing to drain the fiscus dry, while offering the country nothing resembling efficiency or service.

The gulf between the captains we profile and the so-called “leaders” in many SOEs is shameful. The former fix problems; the latter create them. The former deliver value; the latter destroy it. The former innovate and reform; the latter obstruct, delay and collapse. One group works tirelessly to strengthen our transport system; the other is the reason it keeps breaking. Yet the rewards flow in the opposite direction.

No more excuses

I am tired of hearing that SOEs need “more time”, “more restructuring”, “more bailouts” and “more patience”. We have been patient for decades. The private sector has carried the consequences of dysfunction for just as long. And ordinary South Africans – who pay every cent of every bailout – have been patient far beyond reason.

If the individuals running these entities were in the private sector, they would not last 60 days. Not with those balance sheets,  those losses, or that performance.

Yet, in the SOEs, failure seems to attract promotions, bonuses and golden handshakes, while real expertise – the kind embodied by Mike and Nick – is outsourced, underappreciated or ignored entirely.

We cannot build a country on dysfunction

Transport and logistics are not optional extras, they are national infrastructure necessities. They are what make economies work; what hold supply chains together. They are why food arrives in supermarkets, medicine reaches hospitals, factories produce goods and businesses remain operational.

Yet in South Africa today, our rail system is a shadow of what it should be; our ports struggle with basic efficiency; our border posts often move at the pace of wet cement. Our policy environment is inconsistent, fragmented and painfully slow to adapt.

So I say it again: all I want for Christmas is a functioning transport and logistics infrastructure. We will not fix South Africa’s logistics crisis by wishing it away or by writing evermore strategy documents destined for filing cabinets. We will fix it by listening to the people who know what they’re talking about, supporting those who get the job done and refusing to accept mediocrity from institutions that control the arteries of our economy.

I really hope that 2026 is to be the year of new beginnings. Mike and Nick have shown what real leadership looks like. Sharmini has demonstrated the cost of its absence. The contrast should shame every one of us into demanding better.

Because all South Africa wants for Christmas – and the least it deserves – is a transport system that works.