Ports closed, trucks not moving due to Transnet cyber-attack - Road Freight Association
The Road Freight Association (RFA) says ports have been closed while trucks aren’t able to move in either direction as a result of the cyber-attack on Transnet.
CEO Gavin Kelly says the impact has been tremendous on the country’s struggling economy.
“The gates to ports are closed, which means no trucks are moving in either direction. This has immediate effects: the queues will get a lot longer, deliveries will be delayed and congestion will increase.
“This is creating massive delays and creating unreliability of the movement of goods across all modes of transport – with road freight bearing the brunt of the impact.”
On Thursday, Transnet advised its customers that it was experiencing a problem with some of its IT applications and thus had to shut them down to identify the source of the problem.
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Kelly says RFA has received confirmation that the source of the problem has since been identified.
“We have received confirmation from the parastatal today that Transnet has identified the source of disruption to its IT systems and that the technical teams continue to work around the clock to ensure that the impact remains minimal”.
The disruption at Transnet comes at the backdrop of the civil unrest, which saw the Durban port disrupted as a result of the protest action.
This resulted in the port experiencing a huge backlog.
“The delays at the port will further exacerbate the problem. Deliveries will become unreliable and unpredictable - adding further inefficiencies into the supply chain,” adds Kelly.
