Leveraging the resilience of the road transport system as a base for economic recovery

After the devasting global COVID-19 pandemic as well as the local civil unrest and general economic depression in South Africa, government and many of its stakeholders, businesses and individuals have had to come up plans to recover from these challenges. While less may be known about such plans by businesses and individuals, government drew up an economic recovery plan which, like all economic development plans, seeks to ramp up production of commodities as this is one of the main drivers of economic growth.

NATIONAL CERTIFICATE: ROAD TRANSPORT

Production in itself would not deliver desired economic growth, but efficient and timeous movement of these products which ensures that they are where the economy needs them to be is one of the drivers of economic growth. In the South African context, whose economy mainly relies on primary products, some of which are perishable, efficiency of their movement from one place to the next cannot be overemphasised. A functional transport system that facilitates efficient movement of goods is a fundamental requirement. The primary forms of transportation in South Africa include road, air, water and rail.

There have been a plethora of challenges plaguing our transport systems which require circumspect navigation if businesses were to see economic recovery and growth. The challenges include destruction and vandalism that was meted on the rail infrastructure during lockdown; the shortage of jet fuel due to production restrictions in the organisation of the petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) which has led to exponential local increases in air transport costs; industry relations issues at the coastal ports of entry bringing the water transport to a standstill.

The road transport system has its fare share of challenges such as loadshedding that has caused delays in the movement of products, however, it is currently showing to be the most resilient transport system. While the authorities are dealing with the challenges that are affecting the rest of the transport systems, the road transport system is an important base to start from since business has to go on. With such focus on the road transport system as part of the backbone of the economy, the challenges it presents, such as loadshedding, require a workforce that is skilled in areas such as road transport management, transport planning, data analysis, routing and scheduling, and supervisory skills to ensure efficient movement of products by road.

Skills development, particularly through Road Transport learnerships, provides the industry employees with real time experiential learning necessary for best operational performance. Additionally, these learnerships assist employees to be systematic in their planning as well as to be solution oriented when faced with challenges that threaten the efficient movement of products. The Open Learning Group is accredited to train employees on a National Certificate in Road Transport, a package that addresses the road transport challenges as well as that fosters the skills required to efficiently operate in the road transport environment. Road transport industry players are urged to register their employees with OLG for them to receive training in these skills.