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Congratulations: if you are reading this issue of Road Ahead, it means that you are still taking an active interest in matters related to transport, which means that you will have weathered the storm buffeting the sector with force unprecedented since the rinderpest last put paid to it.
At the same time, you will be in search of new ideas; it is my fervent hope that there will be something of interest for you within the modest pages of this humble magazine.
In 2008, South Africa came in at 25 on the International Monetary Fund’s list of the world economies weighted according to power purchasing parity (PPP); in the same year, it ranked much higher on the list of the world’s producers of carbon emissions: 12th, to be precise.
That is not a comforting comparison when you account for the fact that South Africa is a developing country.
However, someone has to take the lead; after read ing our feature on green supply chains, it may just be you.
At the Road Freight Association Convention in May, controversy was generated by an enigmatic acronym that was bandied about quite freely: 4PL. “What the hell is that?” muttered somebody sitting near me at the back of the crowded hall. “Good question,” I thought, and decided to find somebody to answer it properly.
As it turns out, fourth-party logistics, or lead logistics partnering (LLP), offers a supply chain management alternative about which everyone should know.
Speaking of the L-word – have you seen the state of our logistics? On reading about the results of the CSIR’s fifth annual State of Logistics survey, I was forcibly struck by the mental image of an obese fast-food aficionado with chronic blood pressure stuffing chips into his mouth. Some 15.9% of GDP – with indications that it could get worse? Read it and weep; on page 22.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. You can assuage your guilty eco-conscience with the knowledge that using the transport sector’s beloved metal aluminium actually contributes to greening the biosphere.
You’ll also be happy to know that Sanral is on track to decongesting Gauteng with its freeway improvement project – good news for anyone aware of how vitally important a functioning highway system is. Without one, you run the risk of incurring an economic thrombosis.
That would be a shame with such exciting things on the horizon – not least the revival of the North-South Transport Corridor, with international funding of some $1.2 billion (for starters) as announced at a conference in Lusaka in April. More about this in our next issue.
Finally, Road Ahead congratulates Mr Sibusiso Ndebele on becoming South Africa’s Minister of Transport.
Greg Penfold
