Toyota SA may have to wait until early next year for its Prospecton vehicle assembly plant in Durban to return to full production after it was inundated in April’s KwaZulu-Natal floods, president and CEO Andrew Kirby says.
While the group cannot yet put a precise figure to the toll the floods have taken on its operation, finance and exports head Bronwyn Kilpatrick said the final bill could run into “tens of billions” of rand. The Toyota executives were speaking at the plant’s official reopening.
Toyota is one of the businesses in KwaZulu-Natal still counting the full cost of the damage to their operations, which comes on top of the estimated R30bn of damage to the province’s infrastructure caused by the floods earlier this year.
Prospecton, in the south of Durban, was submerged not only by water but also thousands of tonnes of silt and clay carried by floodwater from the Shongweni Dam after its sluice gates opened.
The plant was closed completely for several weeks while engineers and rehabilitation teams drained the premises and repaired machines and hundreds of robots.
The plant builds the Hilux bakkie, Fortuner sport utility vehicle, Quest and Corolla Cross cars, HiAce bus and Hino trucks.
Production is now resuming but Kirby said it would take another “three to six months” for the plant to return to normal. He said Prospecton had expected to build 203,700 vehicles in 2022. Now the number is likely to be about 135,100 — a loss of 68,600.
Kilpatrick added that another 4,000 completed vehicles were scrapped after being submerged while awaiting shipment from Prospecton. Sales and marketing head Leon Theron said Toyota’s share of the SA new-vehicle market had fallen to 16.3% in July from 30% in March. He said 70% of Toyotas sold in SA are built at Prospecton.
The plant is on a floodplain and this is not the first time it has been flooded. It also happened in 2017 but on that occasion it was hit only by water and recovered quickly. This time, because of the silt and clay, many machines cannot work flat out while they wait for replacement parts.
Despite two floods in five years, Kirby said there was no question about moving the plant elsewhere. He said the return to normality would be “systematic and deliberate”.
The full financial impact is not yet clear. The company has received some insurance payouts and is in discussions about more.
He said Japanese parent Toyota Motor had advanced its SA subsidiary loans “to help us survive”.
He added: “If we can break even this year, we will be pleased.” Speaking at the event, newly elected KwaZulu-Natal premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said the launch was a welcome relief for the province, which had suffered triple woes: the Covid-19 pandemic, the July 2021 unrest and floods that claimed the lives of nearly 500 people and left more than 7,000 homeless.
“Toyota SA Motors is central to the heartbeat of the KwaZulu-Natal economy,” Dube-Ncube said.
“It touches the lives of the people of this province and our country in more ways than one. We take immense pride in knowing that this company supports employment and makes a vital contribution to the social upliftment of a number of communities,” she added.
With Mary Papayya
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