City Deep to lose ‘inland port’ status?

In a largely ignored paragraph printed in the draft Customs Control Bill, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) customs has recommended to government that City Deep in Johannesburg should be downgraded from being an “inland port” to just a container terminal. According to Pat Corbin, transport specialist at the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), the motivation would seem to be that there is no room for the urgently needed expansion of City Deep – and that Customs feels it could adequately clear all the import boxes at the Port of Durban. Such a move, he added, would see a massive shift in the current movement of boxes by Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) container train to road transport. However, this would have no effect on the plans for a new billion rand inland port – with the initial phase due to be built on what is currently a 630-hectare site south of Johannesburg, according to Dr Willie Els, of the development company, Inframax Holdings. The Transnet reaction to this public/private partnership – called Tambo Springs – remains positive, he told FTW. “In our discussions with the Gauteng authorities we have heard allusions to this,” Els added. “But Sars has said nothing to us directly as yet, and I don’t think it will affect our plans.” Rather, it fitted in with the original thinking at Inframax, where it saw Tambo Springs intended to be supplementary to City Deep. Indeed, the Tambo Springs development was one of three highlighted in Transnet’s recent presentation to parliament, joining other proposed schemes at Centre Rand, north-east of Johannesburg and Pyramid, north of Tshwane. Els felt that the growth of the city around City Deep had made expansion and/or upgrading to accommodate new demands difficult. “It still has a role to play,” he told FTW. “But the time has come to have it operating in tandem with a larger inland port or ports located on the new city periphery and able to accommodate a large, efficient, intermodal capability for road, rail and air transport. “This is fundamental to any 21st century freight operation.” The proposed logistics gateway is designed to help meet Gauteng’s need to increase the current capacity in and out of Johannesburg to 3-million TEUs by 2015 and 4-m by 2020.