Cape forum urges members to refuse surcharge payment

Alan Peat CAPE TOWN’s Port Liaison Forum has urged its members to flood shipping lines with letters “refusing the congestion charges”. “The congestion surcharge by the lines has been vigorously opposed by both the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF) and cargo owners,” said Uti’s Michael Breakey, an executive member of the forum. “SAAFF meantime believes that this is a matter between the lines and SA Port Operations (Sapo) - and this issue will be taken up at another forum.” On port strike action, the committee noted that labour was at loggerheads with Sapo management. Said Breakey: “If differences are not sorted out shortly, we could see the strike/picketing moving to the port of Cape Town.” However, the forum is concentrating on the immediate problem, he added. Part of this is that the port was suffering a 74-hour delay when Breakey spoke to FTW last week, with eight vessels awaiting berths. Congestion building on congestion, as it were. Another part of the problem is that Sapo is continuing to move import containers to the alternative stacking site at Belcon at the expense of the importer. And the freight charges for this are not cheap. The committee noted that the rates from parastatal freightdynamics were: R150.00 per lift on/off; haulage of R1 000 for a twenty-foot (6-metre) container or R1 300 for a 40-ft (12-m). Storage is currently R60 per day per container but the committee expects this to change to per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit). The committee was adamant that, given this situation, Sapo should only move boxes which were exceeding their three-day free stay. Not penalise importers who are not exceeding their free time by moving their boxes to Belcon. Another serious gripe is that the export stacks are still only being firmed shortly before the vessel berths. This raises all sorts of problems over timeous packing and delivery of export containers - especially over weekends. “Sapo is aware of this problem,” said Breakey, “and SAAFF has expressed its concern.”