Cape Town sits on one of the world's busiest shipping routes, a point the City makes often and with some feeling. It also runs a port that News24 reports was ranked the worst in the world for efficiency in the 2025 Container Port Performance Index, the annual study of vessel time in port produced by the World Bank Group and S&P Global Market Intelligence. Transnet's ports arm has now decided the fix belongs in somebody else's hands.
What the winning bidder actually signs up for
The National Ports Authority issued a request for proposals on 17 July inviting private bidders to take a 25-year concession, a long-term lease to run and rebuild the terminal, over the multipurpose berths B, C and D at the Port of Cape Town. Whoever wins designs, finances, refurbishes, operates and maintains the facility, then hands it back at the end. About 24 months has been set aside for construction. The terminal keeps taking containers, dry bulk such as ore, coal and grain, and the oversized cargo that never fits a box: machinery, wind turbine blades, steel beams. Petroleum is excluded, and it stays open to all shipping lines rather than one owner's fleet. Performance gets marked quarterly against Transnet's standards on cargo volumes, vessel turnaround, berth occupancy and equipment availability. A compulsory briefing runs on 6 August; bids close 20 November.
The season that made the argument
Last summer did the campaigning. Fruit industry body Hortgro says producers lost R1 billion to logistical failures and weather during peak season. Table grape exporters rerouted 55 000 tonnes, and the Western Cape port's share of total fruit exports slid from 91% to 76%. Transnet Port Terminals counts about 30 working days lost to bad weather in November and December alone. TNPA's rebuttal is that things are already turning: ship turnaround time down from 103 hours in 2023/24 to 74 in 2025/26 and 58 in 2026/27, anchorage waits down from 127 hours to 79, with hydraulic ShoreTension units that steady vessels in heavy swell cutting long-wave downtime by 92% since 2023/24.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis called the tender exactly the major reform the City has long been calling for, alongside Transnet's R3.4 billion in capital spending at the port. Research commissioned by the Western Cape government puts the prize at roughly R6 billion in additional exports, nearly 20 000 jobs and more than R1.6 billion in tax revenue. Nine of the port's 11 terminals are already privately operated.
The precedent is not encouraging on speed. Durban's Pier 2 tender went to Philippine operator ICTSI only after lengthy court battles, and cranes moved in January 2026. Cape Town's fruit does not have that kind of patience.
