New deadline for challenge to monopoly on cartage operations
The Competition Board has given Portnet a reprieve by extending the deadline for its response to a challenge from KwaZulu Natal truckers who want the port authority's monopoly on cartage operations in Durban ended.
Chairman of the harbour carriers division of the KwaZuluNatal Association of Freight Forwarders, Harbour Carriers and Warehousemen Paul Rayner said the board had extended the deadline of the end of August for Portnet to respond.
He said the association had approached the board through its attorneys and asked for the new deadline to be clarified.
Portnet has been given an extension but no deadline. We have asked them to set a deadline for Portnet to respond, he said.
Hauliers have challenged Portnet's resuscitation of an old law that allowed it to bar cartage operators from ferrying cargo more than a 100km radius from the port. Rayner said Portnet's enforcement of the monopoly was putting cartage firms out of business.
