Crime diverts transhipments from Jo’burg to Middle East

JOY ORLEK IF SOUTH Africa intends developing Johannesburg as a transhipment hub for the rest of Africa, high levels of risk associated with OR Tambo International will have to be addressed. That was the message from Dan Purtell, president First Advantage and part of a high-level delegation from the Transported Asset Protection Association, which addressed South African industry in Johannesburg last December. “If I'm transhipping to West Africa, my first choice would be the Middle East as a hub because there’s so much risk in Johannesburg. “If you address that risk and put security programmes in place we’re going to start loading cargo here – but it won’t happen now,” said Purtell. “We ship a lot of product through Luxembourg, for example, because it’s a very safe passage – if I can avoid the likes of Frankfurt and Schiphol I will. And the same applies to ORT. “If I route through Johannesburg I need airside escorts and I need the goods in a vault overnight. If security is improved one of the benefits will be increased cargo coming through Johannesburg,” he said. According to Purtell’s statistics, 51% of hijackings occur in Gauteng although it represents just 33% of GDP. The Western Cape on the other hand represents 14% of GDP, 10% of the population and only 1% of hijackings. “If I’m looking at route risk assessments, I’m going to be paying a lot of attention to this kind of information.” Purtell however made it clear that South Africa was not alone in its security issues. The US loses $18bn a year on cargo theft. “Before 9/11 cargo theft was just a reduction in profitability – less than half a percent of your profit was lost to cargo theft. “After 9/11 and the Asian economic crisis the average company is losing a third of its profits to cargo theft.”