Deadline looms for complaints about ports authority

If you have any complaints about the ports authority – in the form of the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) – you may be facing a tight deadline for submission of these, according to Durban port regulator, Riad Kahn. As was revealed in a previous issue covering the August 6 gazetting of the ‘Ports Regulator – Regulatory Principles and Directives’, Kahn, in conversation with FTW, reminded readers that certain of these complaints had to be in his hands soon. This, he added, referred to complaints that arose after November 26, 2006, but prior to the August 6, 2009 publication of these directives. The ruling was that they must be lodged within three months of that August date. And Kahn suggested that the regulator’s office hadn’t actually been flooded – yet – with the number of complaints that some commentators in the market were convinced would pour in. This requires urgent action on behalf of any of you out there who are potential complainants. The three month period can be extended by the regulator on “good cause shown”, according to Tony Norton, maritime specialist with lawyers Garlicke & Bousfield and chairman of the National Port Users’ Forum (NPUF) – provided the complainant applies for such condonation in writing. “Complainants only have until November 5 to lodge any complaint, the act or omission in respect of which arose between those November 2006 and August 2009 dates,” he told FTW.