Crisis plan moves into gear as CT congestion continues

Ever-lengthening delays
and documentary and
processing difficulties at
the Cape Town container
terminal (CTCT) have
forced the local shipping
community to put a crisis
plan into gear.
According to Mike
Walwyn of shipping
specialists Seaboard, and
chairman of the CT Port
Liaison Forum (PLF), the
host of congestion problems
taking place recently has
mostly been blamed on the
new Navis port operations
system installed at Transnet
Port Terminals (TPT). But,
he suggested, this excuse
has become rather lame
after constant repetition.
And vessel and truck
delays, he added, are
becoming unsustainably
long.
“There are substantial
delays inside the terminal,”
he told FTW.
“For trucks, delays are
regularly running out to
six hours and beyond, and
it’s an on-going process
and getting critical for
the landside movement of
containers.”
It led to the members
of the PLF – from all
the facets of the freight
shipping industry –
putting pressure on the
representatives of TPT
and the Transnet National
Ports Authority (TNPA),
and getting agreement that
things had indeed reached
critical proportions.
Said Walwyn: “At
the last of our thenmonthly
meetings, all the
stakeholders (including the
port authorities in all their
forms) decided on crisis
management.
“We now meet weekly
with TPT and TNPA to
discuss problems that
urgently require attention,
and the agreement is that
the port authorities will
come back to us with their
plans to deal with each
issue.”
He suggested that it was
a co-operative type of
arrangement, where all the
sides got to present their
cases before final corrective
action could be taken.
But one problem
remains unresolved, and
may require ministerial
intervention, according to
Walwyn.
“There appear to be
serious management issues
at the terminal,” he said.
“This is the firm, collective
opinion of all the private
sector elements in the
forum, and it has been
made clear to Transnet.
“The general feeling is
that an injection of new
blood would benefit the
terminal.”