South Africa has asked companies to help it set up an office to facilitate the entry of private operators onto the continent’s biggest rail network for the first time. In a letter sent last month to Business Unity South Africa, the Department of Transport asked the country’s biggest corporate lobby group to help set up a private-sector participation office. It also asked Busa to “support concessioning and investment in freight and passenger networks.” The department asked whether companies would “be in a position to help them set up a unit,” said Khulekani Mathe, chief executive officer-designate at Busa. “We will produce the capacity to populate it and then have nothing to do it.” The transport department didn’t respond to a request for comment. The overture to the private sector over reviving the moribund rail industry is the latest attempt by the South African government to rope in corporate skills in a bid to kick-start collapsing government services ranging from electricity provision to water supply. South Africa’s freight-rail services, run as a monopoly by state-owned Transnet, have deteriorated to the point where iron ore is piling up in stockpiles at mines and coal railings to ports are at a 30-year low. That’s slashed earnings for companies including units of Anglo American and Glencore. It’s also resulted in a lower tax take for the cash-strapped government.