The Durban Container Terminal has extended the free storage period for containers following a massive backlog last week which saw trucks waiting for up to nine hours to load containers. FTW was alerted to the crisis by Gerald Naidu of SA Inland Logistics. “The situation at the port is not workable, trucks have been standing for up to nine hours to load containers and this is causing a major impact on service delivery to importers and exporters,” he told FTW. Acknowledging the problem, terminal executive manager Moshe Motlohi told FTW that several measures had been put in place. “The terminal extended the free storage period from the morning of Friday February 25 and the industry has been informed via an update issued by the terminal’s call centre,” he told FTW. The arrival of several large vessels appears to have been the root cause, according to Motlohi. “The large vessel MSC Messina arrived on February 21 carrying 1 738 containers. Two days later another large vessel, MSC Paris, arrived carrying 1 200 containers and both vessels were being served at berth 108 serviced by Tower 109. “As per customer requests we had three export stacks running to the same Tower 109 – the MSC Messina, MSC Paris and MSC Lucy (300 containers). The tower capacity is 24 bays for 24 trucks. This is more than sufficient in busy circumstances, although the ideal scenario would be to allow 12 to 18 hours in between servicing vessels. We had planned sufficiently to accommodate the vessels, but Tower 109 came under serious pressure because of congestion – and this was compounded by a number of factors. “The bulk facility at Island View Storage had been shut down due to rain the day before and trucks were beginning to build up and block access to DCT Pier 1 on Wednesday February 23. “There is ongoing construction in the same vicinity on lower Bayhead Road, which creates a single traffic lane over the Langeberg Road traffic light. This caused congestion right along Bayhead up to South Coast Road. And, in addition, there was a high volume of long-distance trucks after the end of the truckers’ strike.” Naidu told FTW on Monday morning when this issue went to press that the situation had improved over the weekend and that the extension had helped. But he called for improved communication from the port when problems like this arose. “They need to tell us to hold back our vehicles and deploy our resources elsewhere rather than adding to the congestion,” he said. According to sources, additional security had to be called in as frustrated drivers vented their anger. “Long-distance drivers are paid per trip,” Naidu told FTW. “Trucks that were loaded on Thursday came out so late they weren’t able to run up to Gauteng, which was one less trip for them. And coming on the back of the strike where operations were hampered, this was an additional blow.”
