South Africa’s Transnet seeks partnership with GPHA
The Group Chief Executive Officer of South Africa’s logistics firm, Transnet, Portia Derby, says her outfit is looking forward to working more closely with the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority to harness the growth potential of ports in Ghana.
According to her, Transnet intends to partner with GPHA not only for investment opportunities in Ghana but for Ghana to also tap into the vast opportunities in South Africa.
The group Chief Executive Officer of Transnet made this known when she led a 3-member delegation from the South African company to GPHA.
She said her outfit was prepared to partner Ghana in its automotive drive, rail engineering industry as well as fruit exports.
She added that South Africa was ready to partner Ghana to develop its cruise industry in order to rake in the necessary revenue for the state.
“We have already got two cruise terminals on our side, you do not have one, and we can both work jointly on that; at least to help design and location and other issues you are interested in. But it is really important to identify opportunities where there is a win-win for South Africa and Ghana,” Portia Derby expressed.
The Director General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Michael Luguje who received the delegation together with some members of his management team welcomed any partnership between Transnet and GPHA.
Mr. Luguje articulated that, “for us as GPHA, our focus would be on the port and logistics component of what Transnet does within the broader system of South Africa’s multimodal transport logistics service offering. We want to look at the kind of structure they have. They are more export-oriented while we are import-oriented, but you know there is a deliberate government policy to grow exports, so working with South Africa’s Transnet we can learn what direct and indirect role the port is playing in promoting the export sector.”
He said Ghana’s ports are well positioned to take advantage of the cruise industry in South Africa.
Group CEO of Transnet speaks on cyber attacks
Chief Executive Officer of South Africa’s logistics company, Transnet has been detailing lessons the company learnt after it was hit with a cyber-attack in July this year.
News of the attack and the subsequent halt of operations in South African Ports made the headlines on July 22, 2021 and forced the company to revert to manual operations for a while.
Portia Derby, CEO of the company explained in an interview with Eye On port during a visit to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority that the immediate reaction of the company was to shut down its systems while steps were taken to identify the source of the attack.
She said, “we had to act fast. Sometimes you have to take the dramatic action. In our case we had to go black which means shutting down the system and that was at a cost to us as a company. But that is a smaller cost compared to if we continued to operate because we might have lost data and more.”
Portia Derby urged port operators to invest in infrastructure to safeguard their operations.
The Director-General of GPHA, Michael Luguje on his part, indicated that the Port authority has put in place several measures to ensure business continuity.Mr. Luguje said, “with IT systems, there can never be a situation where you are perfect and impenetrable. You can only minimize the effect if attacked and be able to quickly recover if you get your systems crashed. For GPHA we have made some good strides in that regard.”
