Coal demand is bringing mayhem to South African towns
. These days residents check their CCTV cameras on their phones at braais on the weekend. The congestion created opportunities for criminals who saw drivers stranded in the queue for days on end as easy targets after nightfall. Robberies, theft and assaults spread from the highway to the town. Road accidents increased.
President Cyril Ramaphosa described the rail constraints as “a crisis of catastrophic proportions” in a meeting with key exporters in April and created a task force that includes private companies to look for solutions. They will take time to find, his spokesman said in response to questions in late July, adding “this is not a challenge you can resolve overnight”.South Africa’s coal industry is the world’s fifth largest.
Even South Africa’s trucking lobby group agrees coal should be transported in rail wagons, not on roads. “They were not designed for that,” said Gavin Kelly, CEO of the Road Freight Association.Not far from the other main regional port, Richard’s Bay in South Africa, Pongola is also suffering. Once a small sugar-cane farming community where tourists would gather to spot lions in nature reserves, the town now resembles a giant truck stop. The excess traffic is ripping up roads.
Common assaults almost tripled in the first quarter year on year in the town while thefts from vehicles doubled. Neels Pohl, who works for a local bus company, said in July that he was seeing more collisions a week than during his entire six-year career as a traffic officer in the area.
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