South Africa’s World Bank infrastructure quality rankings are quite surprising. South Africa ranked 47th globally for both road and railway infrastructure development and efficiency in 2019 and 2017 respectively. These infrastructure rankings are very surprising given the dramatic decline in railway passenger numbers, rail freight payload and increase in potholes in our roads over recent years (25 million apparently). South Africa’s rankings for port infrastructure at 37th in 2017 is also surprisingly high given the well documented problems at our ports. The World Bank ranked our electricity infrastructure at 97th in 2017, which seems more realistic given over a decade of loadshedding.
