Breaking the Silence

Every year I come to Automechanika, and every year I feel less like a CEO and more like a pastor. Not a priest. A pastor. The kind who comes down off the stage and walks the aisle.

I could stand here and tell you what you already know. But you know which policies are broken. You know your margins. You know which brands come back on a tow truck. You don’t need me to read you the news.

So let me say something else. This industry doesn’t have a knowledge problem. It has a silence problem.

The people in this room see it first. The workshop sees the fault. The supplier watches the order book shrink. The fleet owner knows exactly how many more fuel increases the business can survive. Too often, we see it, we know it, and we keep quiet. Like ostriches, we bury our heads in the sand, waiting for someone else to fix it.

But the truth is that nobody is coming to save you.

We’ve reached a defining crossroads in this industry. Today, I would like us to confront three uncomfortable truths to save our industry.

The Mirage of the Chinese Import Wave

The first truth is the impact of the massive wave of Chinese vehicle imports flooding South Africa.

Chinese brands now account for more than 19% of all new vehicle sales in the country. They arrive with sleek, aggressive styling, panoramic sunroofs, voice-activated cockpits, and dazzling digital screens. On paper, they look like an affordable miracle.

I am not here to say every Chinese car is flawed. I have nothing against vehicles imported from China. They are innovators doing serious engineering. But I am here to tell you that South African consumers are being treated as guinea pigs for products that have not earned the right to be trusted with human lives.

Consider the data. When consumer journalist Wendy Knowler investigated the National Consumer Commission’s vehicle recall registers, she uncovered something extraordinary. In 2025, the NCC processed 57 official safety recalls across our market. Australia, a market twice our size, issued 135. Recalls are not a corporate scandal; they are proof that consumer protection mechanisms are doing their job.

Yet, across a brand collective that captures nearly one-fifth of our national new vehicle market, almost none appeared on that register.

Are these cars built so impeccably that they defy the laws of mechanical engineering? Or are our consumers simply being kept in the dark?

We know the answer. The NCC confirmed that Chery, the dominant force in this import wave, has been executing what can only be described as “silent recalls.”

On the Tiggo 8 Pro Max, a critical brake pipe campaign affected nearly 3,500 vehicles—more than 30%  of every unit sold in South Africa. A brake clip can fail, allowing the brake line to shift directly against the turbo’s scorching exhaust housing. That is not an annoying rattle; that is a potential catastrophic brake loss and fire. 

Chery quietly sent an internal circular to dealers telling them to treat it as a priority. But they never issued an open, public safety recall to the drivers of those cars. Over 2,100 of those vehicles remained on our public roads, carrying families at 120 km/h, with owners completely unaware their brakes were compromised.

And this is not an isolated incident. At the Automobile Association, we blew the whistle on Jetour, another Chery Group brand. They magically increased the payload rating on their T1 and T2 models from 300 kilograms to 475 kilograms, a 58% quantum leap on paper, without upgrading a single bolt, spring, or mechanical component. When the AA insisted on an independent weighbridge test alongside the NRCS, the vehicle failed the test right before our eyes. Yet those vehicles were already being advertised and sold.

Now let’s look across our oceans to Malaysia. On the 6th of October, an Omoda 5 was driving through Johor Bahru when its entire rear axle detached cleanly from the chassis. Unlike our authorities, the Malaysian Road Transport Department did not negotiate. It immediately suspended the type approval for pre-facelift petrol Omoda 5s across 8,800 vehicles while investigations unfolded.

In South Africa? Deafening silence. Some of you probably drove an Omoda C5 here.

Established Japanese and European automakers spent over a century refining manufacturing tolerances, metallurgy, and stress testing. In those mature supply chains, catastrophic mechanical defect rates sit at roughly one in ten thousand. In our workshops and roadside recovery logs today, we are seeing component defect and failure patterns from certain new import stables approaching alarming rates.

These are not toasters, guys. They are two-ton steel projectiles carrying our children. If I put a sticker on a windscreen that said: “There is an unacceptably high chance this vehicle will suffer a major mechanical failure or safety defect,” would you buy it? Would you let your daughter drive it?

And we must also heed a broader economic warning. Look at Thailand. Thailand opened its borders to massive Chinese EV import subsidies without safeguarding its local manufacturing ecosystem.

In four short years, Chinese brands seized 85% of their EV market. The result? Suzuki and Subaru closed their manufacturing plants. Dozens of Tier Two and Tier Three domestic component suppliers went bankrupt. Skilled artisans who spent decades crafting exhaust systems and chassis components are now earning $11 a day packing shelves at supermarkets. Thailand’s chief economic planner had to publicly admit: “We did not think of the full picture.” South Africa is no exception.

If we don’t demand strict local homologation, real weighbridge verifications, transparent recall compliance, and reciprocal industrial value, South Africa will blindly follow the same path.

Mobility in a World of Fuel Hyperinflation

Which brings me to our second crisis: mobility in a world strangled by hyperinflation in fuel prices.

A few weeks ago, Elon Musk stood up in California and captivated global headlines with visions of flying autonomous cars. It was a dazzling theatrical feat. It made for magnificent social media clips.

Fly all you want in Silicon Valley. But here, on the southern tip of Africa, the future of mobility is not about flying cars. In South Africa, the future of mobility depends on whether a mother in Orange Farm or Khayelitsha can afford the basic human right to move!

Mobility is freedom. Mobility is access to employment, education, healthcare, and economic dignity. Those things so many of us in this room enjoy. And in South Africa today, we have engineered a structural poverty trap on wheels.

Official government policy says household transport spending should never exceed 10% of total income. Stats SA says the national average is 16%. But look at the working class. The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group tracks the real cost of living. On our national minimum wage of just over R5,000 a month, the average worker spends R1,520 on taxi fares alone. Transport and basic electricity eat up over 64% of their entire take-home pay.

Think about that math. A worker surrenders half their salary just to sit in a minibus taxi to get to work. They are left with less than R1,800 to feed a family of four for thirty days.

Do you know what that looks like in human terms? Over 25% of South African boys under the age of five suffer from stunting due to chronic malnutrition. Why? Because their mothers are forced to choose between the taxi fare to keep their jobs and buying eggs and milk for their children. Our transport system is actively starving our children!

And why? Because of spatial apartheid and total policy failure. Low-income workers are forced to live on urban peripheries, paying a double-fare penalty every morning and evening. Two minibus taxis to work, two minibus taxis back. That is R72 a day. R1,580 a month in cash.

And who carries them? The minibus taxi industry carries over 80% of all public transport commuters in this country. Yet how much operational subsidy does the state provide to those taxi operators? Bus operators, by contrast, get lavish subsidies.

Zero. Not one cent.

Every hike in crude prices, every spike in the General Fuel Levy, and every increase in the Road Accident Fund levy is passed directly onto the shoulders of the poorest of poor commuters.

Our mobility operators are now at a critical juncture. Taxi operators are trapped between a rock and a hard place: bankruptcy or abandonment. If they raise their fares to match true fuel inflation, commuters simply cannot pay, ridership collapses, and routes die. If they keep fares flat, they run at an operational loss and cannot service their brakes or replace their tyres.

And it is not just taxis. Go out to OR Tambo or Cape Town International. Look at the aprons. You will see commercial passenger aircraft parked in the heat. Air traffic control snags alone don’t ground them. They are parked because South Africans cannot afford domestic airfares. Fuel costs have pushed ticket prices past the breaking point, forcing airlines to consolidate flights just to keep a single aircraft financially viable.

Look at your own roads at dawn. You will see an unprecedented army of commuter cyclists pedalling twenty, thirty kilometres along unlit highways without cycle paths, dodging heavy trucks. They are not riding for fitness. They are riding because they cannot afford the taxi fare.

And while this tragedy unfolds on our streets, what does our government do?

Between 2019 and 2023, the Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport handed the Bombela Concession Company R5.1 billion in contractual “patronage guarantees” for the Gautrain. Over the same four-year window, Gautrain passenger trips collapsed from nearly 14million to under 8 million.

We are paying billions in public money to insure the commercial profits of an empty luxury train service for a wealthy elite, while Metrorail tracks sit stripped and gutted, and our working class have to walk through the dark to get to work.

And now the Gautrain Management Agency wants to launch an e-hailing service called “Gau Express”? Are you joking? The state is bleeding transit passengers, and its answer is to launch an overpriced, app-based taxi fleet to compete with private operators on congested roads? The very promise of the Gautrain was to decongest these roads.

It is vanity masquerading as public policy. We must stop funding vanity projects and start funding purpose and greater mobility equality. We must fund the freedom to move, a constitutional right that seeds human actualisation.

Policy Paralysis and the Slow Collapse

This brings us to the core dilemma in this room: the future of our domestic automotive industry amid paralysing policy indecision.

We have arrived at that fork in the road. Now we must choose decisively. Either South Africa will remain an industrial manufacturing powerhouse that builds, welds, and exports motor vehicles, or we will abandon that legacy and become a pure import-and-retail trading desk.

Right now, our government is attempting to do both under a contradictory, chaotic hodgepodge of policy.

They are trying to mix oil and water. You can make an emulsion from oil and vinegar, yes, true, but only with a powerful emulsifier. If you let that settle, it will eventually split. In an industrial economy, that emulsifier must be a competent, decisive, visionary state that coordinates trade policy, energy security, rail logistics, port operations, and localised manufacturing incentives with ruthless precision.

We do not have said emulsifier.

Instead, we have policy paralysis. We talk endlessly about New Energy Vehicles, yet our localised incentives remain sluggish and opaque while foreign competitors dump subsidised imports into our dealerships. We watch Transnet bottle up our ports, forcing OEMs to incur crippling demurrage costs while finished vehicles sit stranded offshore and export containers rot on sidings.

Let me give you an analogy.

You all know the famous dinner party trick. A magician grabs the edge of a tablecloth loaded with plates, glasses, and silverware. If you want the plates to stay safely on the table, you must grab that cloth and yank it with blinding speed and absolute conviction! Inertia does the work, the cloth snaps free, and the dinner service remains intact.

What is our government doing? They are not yanking the cloth.

They are slowly, timidly, hesitantly dragging the tablecloth inch by inch. And what are we doing? Are we sitting back, watching the plates wobble, the wine glasses tilt, and the cutlery slide inexorably toward the edge of the table? We can do better.

When that crockery hits the floor and shatters into a million pieces, do you think you can simply glue it together again? Rebuilding an automotive industrial base after it collapses is like rebuilding an economy after a war. Once the toolmakers pack up their dies, once the foundries shut down their blast furnaces, once the Tier Three engineers leave our shores, no one comes back.

Why are we allowing this? I will tell you why.

Because the private sector has gone quiet. The captains of industry in this room are terrified. You fear that if you speak plainly, criticise the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, challenge the Department of Transport, or question the fuel levies, you will lose your seat at the negotiating table. You fear an audit, ostracism, or being passed over for government fleet procurement. Yes. I said it. You are afraid to bite the hand that feeds you crumbs, while that same hand starves your entire ecosystem.

Strip away the political noise. South Africa is not an ideological experiment; run it like a business.

If you sat on the board of directors of a major enterprise, looked at the management accounts, and saw logistics failing, fuel costs bankrupting your consumers, imported products destroying your core manufacturing margins, and your capital draining into vanity projects, what would you do?

Would you smile, nod, and compliment management on their slides?

Not a chance! You would intervene. At least I hope you would. You would right-size the operation, overhaul the strategy, fire incompetent management, and demand accountability.

You are the board of directors of the South African automotive industry! It is time you start acting like it!

Speak Truth to Power

Colleagues, hear me today. Silence is not diplomacy. Silence is complicity.

We cannot sit at Automechanika, trade business cards, marvel at shiny imported showroom displays, and pretend that our silence will protect us. It will not.

It is time to speak truth to power!

To the National Consumer Commission and the NRCS: stop turning a blind eye. Demand mandatory public-safety recalls for every defective imported vehicle. Stop accepting foreign laboratory paperwork on blind faith. Put every imported model on local weighbridges and crash-testing jigs before our citizens pay with their lives.

To the Department of Transport and National Treasury: scrap the vanity spending.  Stop pouring billions in patronage guarantees into empty luxury trains like the Gautrain. Reallocate those funds to where the real economy moves: mass commuter rail, Bus Rapid Transport networks, and subsidising the minibus taxi industry that keeps South Africa working. Conduct an immediate, independent audit of the General Fuel Levy and the Road Accident Fund to strip away the artificial tax bloat crushing our transport operators and working families. While you are at it, let’s review the basic fuel price.

And to every CEO, every dealer principal, every component manufacturer, and every aftermarket leader in this room: let’s take ownership of this industry together.

We need to stop waiting for some messiah. The industry has the economic leverage. The technical knowledge. The institutional voice.

Yes, take it from me, if you speak out, you will ruffle feathers. Yes, you might take flak from bureaucrats who would rather maintain the illusion of control. But I would rather take censure for speaking the truth for South African jobs and South African lives than die a slow, cowardly corporate death on an abandoned factory floor.

Stand up for your component suppliers. Stand up for your assembly workers. Stand up for the mother who has to walk through the dark because she cannot afford the taxi fare. Stand up for that five-year-old who suffers the consequences. Lastly, stand up for the dignity of South African mobility.

Let’s lift our heads out of the sand. And speak truth to power. If we unite, we can rebuild this country’s automotive industry into one we can be proud of, one that is more vibrant and useful.

We have no other choice. My father often says to me, and it is a hard truth: No one will save us. We must save ourselves.

Thank you.

When the cost of getting goods from A to B keeps climbing, businesses have two choices: absorb the increase and watch their margins shrink, or take a closer look at how their supply chains work.

For many companies, logistics costs are treated as a necessary expense,  something to negotiate when a quote comes in too high or revisit when the budget starts looking uncomfortable. But the biggest savings are not always found in securing a cheaper freight rate. They can be found in the decisions made long before a shipment leaves the warehouse.

From the timing of orders to the way cargo is packed, routes are planned and suppliers are managed, small inefficiencies can accumulate into significant costs.

“Businesses are under pressure from every direction. The challenge is that when costs increase, the instinct is often to look for the cheapest quote and move on,” says Craig du Toit, Managing Director of RSA Global Forwarding South Africa. “But the cheapest rate on paper does not always translate into the lowest overall cost. A delayed shipment, poor planning, unnecessary storage or an unexpected charge can quickly wipe out the saving. Businesses need to look at the full picture.”

Rather than treating logistics as a transaction, RSA Global Forwarding encourages businesses to view it as a strategic part of their operations – one that can influence cash flow, customer satisfaction, competitiveness and profitability.

10 Practical Ways to Cut Logistics Costs

1. Stop Paying to Move Air

Are you paying to transport half-empty containers, oversized packaging or vehicles carrying far less than their capacity? Review the dimensions, weight and volume of your cargo before booking. Better packaging and load planning can help businesses make better use of available space and avoid paying for capacity they do not need.

“Space is one of the easiest things to overlook because you don’t necessarily see the cost immediately,” says François Coetzee, Managing Director of RSA Global Forwarding. “But when inefficient packaging is repeated across dozens or hundreds of shipments, that unused capacity becomes a very real cost to the business.”

2. Consolidate Shipments Where Possible

Multiple small shipments can mean multiple handling fees, transport charges and administrative processes. Where delivery deadlines allow, combining orders into fewer, better-planned shipments can reduce the cost per unit moved. The key is balancing consolidation with the cost of holding stock for longer.

3. Plan Ahead to Avoid Unnecessary Urgency

Last-minute bookings leave less room to compare options, coordinate cargo and choose the most suitable transport method. Forecasting demand, confirming orders earlier and communicating shipping requirements in advance can help businesses avoid preventable expedited freight costs.

“Urgency is expensive,” says du Toit. “There will always be shipments that genuinely need to move quickly, but businesses should not be paying premium rates simply because planning happened too late. The earlier we understand what a customer needs, the more options we can explore with them.”

4. Compare Total Landed Cost, Not Just Freight Rates

A low freight quote may look attractive until customs duties, clearance fees, port charges, insurance, storage and inland transport are added. Businesses importing or exporting goods should calculate the full cost of getting cargo to its final destination before choosing a shipping option.

Coetzee says businesses should be careful not to let a headline freight rate dictate the entire decision.

“A freight rate is only one piece of the cost equation. What matters is what the shipment ultimately costs the business from origin to destination. Looking at the total landed cost gives you a much more accurate basis for making a decision.”

5. Choose the Right Transport Mode for the Job

Air freight, sea freight and road transport each have a role to play. Air freight may be justified for urgent, high-value or time-sensitive goods, while sea freight may suit larger shipments that can accommodate longer transit times. Road freight can offer flexibility for domestic and regional movements. The objective is to match the transport method to the shipment’s urgency, value, volume and commercial requirements.

“The fastest option is not automatically the smartest option,” says François. “If a shipment does not need to arrive tomorrow, paying a premium for speed may simply be unnecessary. The right question is: what does the business actually need this shipment to achieve?”

6. Treat Customs Documentation as a Cost-Control Tool

Incomplete paperwork, incorrect tariff classifications and missing permits can lead to delays, additional handling, storage costs and penalties. Ensure commercial invoices, packing lists, shipping documents and any required permits are accurate and submitted on time. A little preparation can prevent expensive complications later.

“Documentation may seem like administration, but in international logistics it directly affects time and cost,” du Toit explains. “A missing document can hold up cargo, and a delay can quickly turn into storage, demurrage or other additional charges. Getting the paperwork right is one of the simplest ways to avoid unnecessary costs.”

7. Review Your Inventory Strategy

Holding too much stock ties up working capital and increases warehousing costs. Holding too little can lead to emergency orders and expensive expedited shipments. Review sales patterns, supplier lead times and demand forecasts to find a balance between availability and unnecessary inventory expenditure.

François says logistics decisions should never be made in isolation from the wider business.

“Your inventory strategy and your logistics strategy are connected. If you consistently run out of stock, you may end up paying for emergency freight. If you consistently over-order, you are tying up capital and potentially paying more for storage. The objective is to find the point where availability and cost make commercial sense.”

8. Question Every Recurring Charge

Do not simply accept freight invoices at face value. Review fuel surcharges, storage fees, demurrage, detention, handling charges and other additional costs. Understand what triggers each charge, verify that it has been applied correctly and identify recurring problems that could be prevented through better planning.

“Recurring charges are worth investigating because they can tell you where a process is breaking down,” says Coetzee. “If a business is repeatedly paying storage or detention fees, for example, the answer may not be to negotiate the fee. The better question is why the fee keeps happening in the first place.”

9. Improve Communication Across Your Supply Chain

A supplier who does not know when cargo is required, a warehouse that is not ready to receive a delivery or a customer who changes requirements at the last minute can create a costly chain reaction. Clear communication between suppliers, freight partners, customs teams, warehouses and customers helps reduce avoidable delays and duplicated work.

“Good logistics is built on communication,” says François. “There are a lot of moving parts between a supplier and the final destination. When everyone has the right information at the right time, problems can often be addressed before they become expensive problems.”

10. Work With a Logistics Partner Who Looks Beyond The Shipment

A logistics relationship should involve more than receiving a rate and arranging a collection. An experienced partner can help identify suitable transport options, flag potential delays, explain cost drivers and coordinate the different stages of a shipment. Regular reviews of shipping patterns, recurring charges and operational challenges can reveal opportunities that individual bookings may not show.

Du Toit believes this is where the role of a logistics company can move beyond simply moving cargo.

“A logistics partner should understand what the customer is trying to achieve, not just where a shipment needs to go,” he says. “When you understand the business behind the shipment, you can start identifying opportunities to improve the process, manage risk and ultimately make the supply chain work harder for the customer.”

The Biggest Saving May Be the Problem You Prevent

According to François Coetzee, Managing Director of RSA Global Forwarding, cost reduction should not mean compromising on the reliability, visibility or service businesses depend on.

“Cutting costs is not simply about paying less for transport. It is about understanding where money is being lost, making better-informed decisions and preventing avoidable expenses before they happen,” says François. “Sometimes the answer is consolidating a shipment. Sometimes it is correcting a documentation issue, changing the timing of an order or choosing a more appropriate transport solution. The important thing is to understand the customer’s operation and find an approach that makes commercial sense.”

For businesses moving goods across borders, the stakes can be particularly high. International shipments involve multiple parties, regulatory requirements, transport stages and timelines. A decision that saves money at one point in the process can create a more expensive problem somewhere else if the wider supply chain is not considered.

That is why cost management needs to be ongoing rather than reactive. Reviewing shipping data, identifying recurring inefficiencies and maintaining open communication with logistics partners can help businesses make improvements before cost pressures become operational problems.

Smarter Logistics is a Business Advantage

Rising costs may be outside an individual business’s control, but how it responds to them is not entirely out of its hands.

“Businesses do not always have the luxury of controlling the market, but they can take greater control of how they plan, procure and manage their logistics,” says du Toit. “The goal should not be to cut costs at any price. It should be to build a supply chain that is efficient, dependable and fit for the business’s needs. That is where smarter logistics can make a real difference.”

For RSA Global Forwarding, the conversation starts with a simple question: are businesses paying only for the logistics services they need, or are they also paying for inefficiencies that better planning could prevent?

In a market where every rand matters, the answer could make a meaningful difference to the bottom line.

South Africa’s Transport Month this October puts renewed focus on the role that transport plays in economic growth and social development. For businesses, that conversation extends beyond infrastructure and the movement of goods. It also includes the daily movement of the people who keep operations running.

Reliable passenger transport is essential to workforce mobility and business continuity. In industries that operate in shifts or around the clock, dependable transport can influence attendance, shift readiness and production continuity. Yet the movement of people is often overlooked as part of supply-chain resilience.

Unitrans passenger operations provides employee transport, commuter services and managed solutions across multiple sectors, moving people early in the morning, late at night and over long distances to mining, agricultural and other operational sites.

“Transport is not just about mobility. It is a lifeline to work, income and essential services,” says Bazil Govender, Divisional Head: Business Development at Unitrans passenger operations. “It connects people to livelihoods, education, healthcare and economic opportunity, while supporting the continuity of local businesses.”

Transport Month provides a timely opportunity to consider this wider role: how safe, reliable and well-managed mobility supports not only individual journeys, but the businesses, communities and local economies that depend on them.

Safety Beyond Compliance

Research published by the Road Traffic Management Corporation in March 2025 recorded 146 fatalities in major long-distance bus crashes during 2024, the highest annual figure in its 2018–2024 dataset. The findings reinforce the need for continued attention to passenger transport safety.

At Unitrans, safety extends beyond compliance.

“Policies and procedures are essential, but safety ultimately depends on people making responsible decisions every day,” Govender says. “That includes the driver behind the wheel, the team planning the route, the customer setting operational expectations and every person sharing the road.”

Safety must therefore inform each stage of how a journey is planned and delivered.

Drivers contribute through vigilance, professionalism and care. Operations teams consider routes, schedules, vehicle readiness and local conditions. Customers help uphold standards, while passengers, communities and other road users influence the broader road environment.

This shared responsibility requires consistent attention to behaviour, accountability and continuous improvement. Safety must be embedded in organisational culture rather than treated as a checklist addressed only during a campaign or event.

What Makes a Connected Community?

The Unitrans passenger operations team sees first-hand how safe, reliable mobility supports people, businesses and the supply chains that depend on them.

Behind every journey is a coordinated network of drivers, planners, fleet teams, operational processes and relationships with customers and communities. When one part of that network fails, the impact can extend beyond a delayed trip to affect employee attendance, production schedules, family responsibilities and access to essential services.

“In a South African context, a connected community is one where mobility is reliable, safe and inclusive, and becomes an enabler of economic resilience, business continuity and social progress,” says Nothando Sibiya, Business Development Manager at Unitrans passenger operations.

“It requires businesses to see transport as more than simply moving people from one place to another. Transport providers need to understand the communities and environments in which they operate, engage meaningfully with local stakeholders and respond to the realities of each route and region.”

Connected communities are therefore supported not only by infrastructure, but by strong relationships, accountable systems and collaboration among businesses, customers, passengers, communities, road users and public stakeholders.

The Human Impact of Transport

A practical example emerged through ongoing engagement between the regional management team at a Unitrans operation in Secunda and members of the surrounding community.

Through these conversations, the team became aware that transport challenges were affecting some children’s ability to attend school consistently. Working with community representatives, the team helped put a transport arrangement in place to improve access to education.

The response was rooted in a clearly identified local need and made use of existing transport capabilities to address a practical barrier.

By improving learners’ ability to reach school, the arrangement demonstrated how listening, collaboration and targeted action can make a meaningful difference to people’s everyday lives.

It also reflects Govender’s view that meaningful community contributions should be continuous rather than once-off, practical rather than symbolic, and shaped by local realities.

Moving People, Supporting Progress

Passenger transport cannot solve every economic or social challenge, and responsibility for building safer, more connected communities does not rest with transport providers alone.

It requires commitment from businesses, customers, employees, communities, road users and public stakeholders. Trust, communication and ongoing engagement are as important as the physical infrastructure connecting people.

When employees can reach their workplaces consistently and safely, businesses are better positioned to maintain operations and protect productivity. When communities have dependable access to employment, education, healthcare and essential services, people are better able to participate in economic and social opportunities.

The result is a stronger connection between people, operational continuity and supply-chain resilience – and a reminder during Transport Month that the value of transport is ultimately measured by what it enables.

“Purposeful transport is not simply about reaching a destination,” Govender concludes. “It is about enabling opportunity, strengthening relationships and helping to create the conditions in which people, communities and businesses can progress.”

Source note: Department of Transport, October Transport Month 2026.

Road Traffic Management Corporation, The Role of Seatbelts in Preventing Fatalities and Serious Injuries in Long Distance Bus Crashes in South Africa, March 2025. The study’s 2024 dataset was extracted on 2 December 2024 and covers records up to 1 December 2024