Andre Klynsmith

Asset Management

R2 Billion Lost, R3.7 Billion Spent Defending: Transnet's Hidden Asset Line

Transnet lost almost R2 billion to theft and vandalism in the 2025/26 financial year and spent a further R3.7 billion defending its infrastructure. Together those two figures are larger than a quarter of the group's entire capital budget for the year.

Asset Management

15 September 2026 • 3 min read

Incidents fell 7% year on year, yet the loss figure stayed close to R2 billion. That combination tells an asset management story rather than a policing one: fewer, better-targeted attacks on higher-value assets cost as much as more frequent petty theft, and the defensive spend does not depreciate into anything productive.

The numbers behind the headline

Group chief executive Michelle Phillips told Transnet's annual financial results presentation that the group recorded roughly 5 870 theft and vandalism incidents across its operations during the year. Responding to those attacks, she said, pulled employees and resources away from the core job of operating trains and moving freight.

Chief financial officer Nosipho Maphumulo put the security bill at R3.7 billion for the period. She described it as a necessary investment but noted that partnerships which reduce the cost would benefit both Transnet and its customers — an unusually direct acknowledgement that security spend is ultimately recovered through tariffs.

Why fewer incidents did not mean smaller losses

A 7% drop in incident count with a broadly flat loss value points to a shift in what is being targeted rather than a retreat by the perpetrators. Overhead traction cable, signalling equipment and substation copper carry replacement costs and, more importantly, outage costs far out of proportion to their scrap value. A single cable theft on a busy section can idle multiple train paths for days.

That is the asset management trap. The direct loss lands in one line of the accounts, the replacement lands in the renewal capex line, and the lost volume lands in the revenue line — but none of them show up as a single, visible cost of infrastructure crime. Rail volumes grew 4.9% to 167.9 million tonnes during the year, still short of the 180 million tonne target, and security-driven downtime is part of that gap.

The same arithmetic applies to private fleets

Road transport operators across the SADC region run a smaller version of the same equation: batteries, catalytic converters, diesel, tarpaulins, tracking units and cargo itself. The instinct is to treat losses as an insurance matter and security as an overhead. Transnet's disclosure suggests a better framing — that protective spend belongs in the asset lifecycle model alongside maintenance and replacement, because it directly determines how much useful life an asset delivers.

If R3.7 billion of protective spend buys uptime rather than assets, it should be tested the same way a tyre policy or a service interval is tested: what does each rand return in avoided downtime? Operators that cannot answer that for their own yards, depots and overnight stops are effectively guessing at a cost line that, in Transnet's case, rivals the expansion budget.

About the Author
	Andre Klynsmith Entrepreneur & Technology Enthusiast Andre's expertise spans technology, blockchain, transport, and logistics — with a passion for innovation and driving positive change across industries. info@laaimylorrie.com | laaimylorrie.com