DESPITE PORTNET disagreement, the April 1 changes in ad valorem wharfage are perhaps more significant as a gesture than for the effect they will have on costs, according to the forwarding industry.
The import rate fell from 1.78% of the value of the goods for customs purposes to 1.70% - while the export rate dropped from 0.89% of the FOB value to 0.85%. This was accompanied by rises in both maximum and minimum values.
The effect of this, according to Geoff Epstein, freight auditor at Safcor Panalpina, "is probably best described by Shakespeare in the title of his play Much Ado About Nothing".
"Wharfage amounts payable on lower valued cargoes are reduced by 4.5%," he added, "with a maximum reduction of R7.20 per freight ton (imports) and R3.60 per freight ton (exports).
"Wharfage on high value imports are reduced by a princely 1-cent per ton."
But Tebogo Moremi, executive manager for marketing at the Port Authority Division (PAD), would probably disagree with the feelings represented by this comment.
He certainly disagreed with the statements made in the original FTW article on the matter on February 23.
In this, he was at odds with Nolene Lossau, executive director of the SA Shippers Council, claiming that the exercise was Portnet "intensifying their money-making focus on high value cargoes."
And with Ršhlig Grindrod"s operations director Brian Mulligan saying: "In essence, any saving really only applies to high-bulk, low-value cargoes. It"s a clever juggling of values per ton and percentages."
But, argued Moremi, "the change in ad valorem wharfage, and the retention of the existing wharfage unit rates for coastal and transhipment cargoes, result in the PAD revenue, in real terms, taking a downward turn in 2001/02."
But that"s missing the point, say the other FTW commentators. This "juggling", this "number-crunching", they said, was not what was expected.
April 1 was originally intended, according to Portnet public statements, to be a time of sweeping change.
The new rates were supposed to be part of a restructuring - and, hoped the private sector, becoming service- and market-related.
And, it was also fervently hoped, it was to be the end of the contentious "ad valorem" element in wharfage. A charge "ostensibly for the use of harbour facilities", according to Epstein, "but becoming a major revenue source for the then-SATS and now Portnet - and a major source of complaint on the part of organised commerce, who have long regarded it as a form of additional taxation."
The Portnet promises of review and reform - originally intended for this April - were, however, not fulfilled, and are the basis for complaint from the freight industry.
The shipping business was looking for this non-cost-related charge to disappear - not to be resurrected in a new formula.
They were even willing to accept one of the possible alternatives - a set-rate wharfage levy, for example, which would be dedicated to port maintenance/repair.
Which leads to the most interesting part of Moremi"s reply - suggesting that perhaps something along these lines is due soon. "I want to reiterate our commitment," he told FTW, "to the reform of the PAD tariffs - with the aim to replace the existing ad valorem wharfage with a unit rate."
"Wharfage on high value imports are reduced by a princely 1-cent per ton"
"Portnet aims to replace the existing ad
valorem wharfage with a unit rate"
