CT heavyweights urge crisis control measures

‘Marine services must address pilot shortage issue’ Ray Smuts GRAVE CONCERNS at the poor level of marine services in the Port of Cape Town has led to the National Ports Authority being urged to return to the drawing board in order to ward off what could well be another crisis in the making. The Association of Ship’s Agents and Brokers of Southern Africa (ASABOSA) and the Association of Shipping Lines (ASL) have handed Hlubi Mzamo, the port’s marine services operations manager, a lengthy list of vessels whose schedules were disrupted in the last few months and come up with a number of proposals on how problems might be alleviated Pilot shortage solutions include: l Recalling pilots who have either taken ‘packages’ or gone on pension (The problem of delays seems to relate particularly to availability of pilots). l Bringing in pilots from areas like Saldanha or Port Elizabeth where the pressure might be less intense. l Using a small, more cost-effective, helicopter to land pilots on vessels thereby ensuring swifter rotation. l Sorting out the meal breaks issue, clearly still something of a “thorny” issue for the lines and the NPA. Mike Economou, Cape regional director for MSC, one of the biggest users of the container terminal, makes the point that a carrier’s productivity is determined from the time a pilot picks up the vessel to when he is dropped off. “Our service is dependent on quick arrival and departure so how can marine services claim it is coping when a container vessel’s departure is delayed for eight hours?” Paging through the list of numerous delays handed to Mzamo at the NPA/ASABOSA/ASL meeting, Economou cites the example of a general cargo vessel told berthing would be on time. This was followed by a one-hour delay which eventually stretched to 12 hours. “It is quite sad that the container terminal has upped its productivity on the one hand and marine services has fallen down on the other. Let us instill some urgency into this problem because right now there isn’t any. “We simply cannot afford delays because if we cannot get our exports to our markets, people will buy elsewhere. They are not interested in how few or how many tugs Cape Town has.” Timing is of the essence if the window (slot) berthing project introduced in Cape Town on September 13 is to prove viable. Delays, wind for one, will invariably have a knock-on effect on the system in Port Elizabeth and Durban. “All we need in Cape Town is one good blow and the windows system is out of the window,” says Economou, adding that if two tugs are required to hold an oil rig in place in inclement weather (as has happened) only two tugs are left to handle the day’s movements.