A SOUTH African court has ordered China’s CRRC E-Loco to release locomotive spares withheld from Transnet in a long-running contract dispute, said Reuters citing comments made by the state-owned freight rail operator’s CEO on Thursday.
The ruling boosts Transnet’s efforts to improve performance after 161 locomotives supplied by the Chinese manufacturer were left idle due to CRRC E-Loco withholding spares and maintenance support, the newswire said.
The dispute stems from 2014 contracts worth R54.4bn (£2.4bn) for 1,064 locomotives from four suppliers. Transnet halted the agreements after determining they had been unlawfully awarded by previous leadership.
Speaking at the Joburg Indaba mining conference in Johannesburg, Transnet CEO Michelle Phillips said the company had secured a court order giving CRRC E-Loco five days to deliver the parts, which are held in South African warehouses.
“I was not going to pay for my own parts again. We went back to court, and we then got an order giving the CRRC five days to deliver those parts to Transnet,” Phillips said.
“So these last few days, we’ve been accessing those parts. We are busy doing full inventory of all of those parts,” she added.
Transnet maintains it already paid for the spares under the disputed contract before its termination. Last July, it won a separate court order preventing CRRC E-Loco from selling or relocating parts already in South Africa.
The Chinese company was not immediately available for comment, said Reuters.
The equipment shortage, compounded by cable theft and infrastructure vandalism, has severely impacted Transnet’s operations. Freight volumes have plummeted from 226 million tons in 2017/18 to 160Mt in the 2024/25 financial year, said the newswire.
