THE century-old Benguela railway is back in business. Running from the copper belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through Zambia to Angola’s deep-water port of Lobito, it is emerging as one of Africa’s most strategically important freight corridors. As it does, South Africa’s crumbling rail and port network looks less like a local problem and more like a national blind spot.
The Benguela line has a long history. At its peak in 1973, it employed 13,000 workers and carried 60% of then-Zaire’s copper and 45% of Zambia’s cobalt exports. Angola’s civil war then wrecked it, reducing it to less than 3% of capacity. It was revived after Beijing took control of roughly 80% of the DRC’s Katanga and Lualaba copper mines and 76% of its cobalt, pumping $2bn into the line during the 2000s to restore operations.
In 2020, Angola awarded commodity trader Trafigura, construction group Mota-Engil, and rail operator Vecturis a 30-year concession — extendable to 50 years — to run the corridor. The result has been dramatically faster and cheaper export times compared with trucking copper to east coast ports such as Dar es Salaam.
South Africa’s leading logistics academic Jan Havenga says the Lobito corridor’s rise was always coming. The old north-south corridor — designed during the colonial era to funnel raw minerals south to ports like Durban — was never going to last.
“The reshaping was expected decades ago,” he said.
Havenga added that South Africa still has the continent’s dominant rail network, but it must be restored to the same standard as the national road network. “Transnet’s balance sheet has been badly weakened by the mismanagement and fraud of previous management. It cannot afford to fix the infrastructure and its shareholder [the government] will have to step in.”
South Africa needs to implement the Ports Act, he said, which would create a more integrated port-and-rail system with clearer governance, better access rules and more investment in the freight chain. The priority must be spending on rail and building resilience under the African Continental Free Trade Area. Lobito cannot take Durban or Richards Bay’s natural hinterland away from them, but South Africa must act quickly. His message to the National Treasury: “Be real about logistics reform — and expedite.”
Independent consultant Evans David Wala Chabala said South Africa needs to lead, not drift. Lobito’s current capacity of one million tonnes a year is dwarfed by the DRC’s output of more than 3Mt of copper and Zambia’s 900,000 tonnes expected in 2025. Other corridors — including the revived Tazara line between Tanzania and Zambia, and the ports of Beira and Walvis Bay — are also competing for that traffic.
Transnet should be working with the DRC, Zambia and Zimbabwe on a rail corridor to Durban, Chabala said.
“It would appear South Africa has failed to leverage its advanced industrial edge via SADC and Auda-Nepad, and in particular to drive the programme for infrastructure development in Africa to ensure that logistical corridors, which could bring traffic to its ports, are developed,” he said. “South Africa has failed, or refused, to appreciate that its economic fortunes are tied to the economic performance of countries in the region.”
He called on Transnet to think holistically — improving port efficiency while also developing transit corridors from the DRC — and to mobilise resources to rehabilitate the rail line from the DRC through Zambia and Zimbabwe to Durban.
Trafigura’s Neil Hume made a blunt case for Lobito’s competitive advantage. The Lobito Atlantic Railway delivers cargo from Kolwezi in the DRC to the port in seven days — 29 days faster than Walvis Bay, 32 days faster than Dar es Salaam, and 19 days faster than Durban. The corridor is backed by debt funding from the US International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. “Governments provide predictability; the private sector delivers discipline, capital, customers,” he said.
Angola, Zambia and the DRC are investing in their rail networks with private-sector discipline. South Africa’s choice is now stark: reform Transnet urgently, or lose its grip on the region’s trade arteries — and its mineral export dominance — to the Lobito corridor.
