Customs shuts down Durban port

The Durban customs office responsible for clearing ships to sail recently gave shipowners a lesson in how to shut down SA’s premier sea port without any advance warning and with no reason being made public. This came about on the night of January 3/4 when customs stuck a tacky, hand-scribbled notice on the office door announcing that it would be closed from 19:30 on January 3 to 06:00 on January 4. “That ‘close’ was the operative word,” a shipping executive told FTW, “and to hell with the cost factor involved when any vessel agent required a clearance to sail a vessel, but was unable to do so because of an office shut-down.” And this cost is not peanuts. For the standard sort of vessel using the port you’re talking about R95 000- R100 000 for a ten-and-a-half hour delay in sailing. And this almost occurred on the Saturday evening of January 3 when one of the car carriers was nearing completion. The vessel’s agent went to obtain a customs clearance. But all he was met with was that fateful notice on their office door. “We weren’t aware of the closure of the office,” the agent told FTW, “and never did discover why they’d closed down.” After a mad burst of phoning around, the problem eventually came to the ears of the SA Association of Ship Operators and Agents (Saasoa). “They finally got someone to come in and open up the office, and we were eventually able to sail the ship,” the agent said. And, added our shipping executive: “When I heard of the matter the next morning I cringed, and wondered what global shipping circles must be thinking of customs management in Durban – believed to be the gem of South African ports.” CAPTION The tacky notice that informed lines of the unexplained shutdown