It is a short drive on a congested road from Pretoria, South Africa's political capital, to Johannesburg, its commercial one. But Maria Ramos, who just moved her office from the former to the latter, has a much longer and more difficult path ahead of her. Last year she quit as head of the Treasury in Pretoria, after more than seven years working closely with Trevor Manuel, the finance minister. Together they deserve much of the credit for the broad macro-reform of South Africa's economy: cutting debt, subsidies and inflation, and boosting exports. Now, as boss of Transnet, the state transport monopoly with fixed assets of 70 billion rand ($11 billion), she finally has the chance to tackle some of the biggest micro-level obstacles to raising the rate of growth of the country's GDP from an average of 2.8% a year at which it seems stuck. From her 50-floor building in downtown Johannesburg, Ms Ramos must quickly find ways to kick-start creaking rail services, unblock overwhelmed ports and relieve a debt-laden airline. It is an unenviable task, and one so controversial that she has to be careful about what she says while this week's general election is under way in South Africa.
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