Durban shares congestion headache with ports worldwide ‘Few anticipated such rapid growth’

TERRY HUTSON
CAPTAIN SALVATORE Sarno, managing director of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) in South Africa, remains committed and confident about South Africa’s future.
So much so that he’s sunk a whole stack of his own money, time and effort into South Africa’s bid for the America’s Cup – the world’s top international yachting event.
“Our intention is not so much to bring the (America’s) Cup to South Africa but rather to bring South Africa to the world. That is what this is all about and that is what I am telling people overseas. We intend showing the world that South Africa can compete with everybody, not only in sports but in business, technology, intelligence, performance.”
He says that the SA team is currently sailing with the shortest and oldest boat, therefore automatically the slowest at the current series of races in Europe. “But we also have the youngest crew and the biggest flag. And we’ve done well, much better than anybody expected.”
The South African entry Shosholoza will be replaced in later races with a new boat designed and built in South Africa.
Sarno’s attitude overflows into his view of the local maritime industry and in particular with what the country’s ports are capable of. MSC remains the largest user of the Durban container terminal and naturally any problems there are of as much concern to him as anyone else.
But he places another perspective on the port congestion situation. “We shouldn’t think we’re poor Africans who can’t plan properly. If mistakes were made we should remember they were made everywhere, not just in South Africa but in other ports throughout the world, and most of them were because few people could anticipate such rapid growth in container traffic.”
He said that at a recent meeting of MSC managing directors held in Europe – a total of 75 MSC MDs were present - a lot of time was given to discussing the problem of congestion in ports worldwide.
“Almost all the medium sized container ports like Durban are experiencing the same problems. It doesn’t matter where you go - to Valencia, La Spezia, Felixstowe, Le Havre - they all face the same challenges and have the same problems of congestion. For example in Valencia MSC has its own berth and seven cranes but still we experience delays of between 1.5 to 2 days. We discussed and were in agreement on this very point at our meeting, so it’s not unique to South Africa. Durban in fact may turn out to be the first medium sized port to do something about overcoming this problem.”
Sarno reiterated his optimism with South Africa. “The exchange rate has penalised us but we are not seeing any decrease in exports,” he pointed out.
“We must stop blaming port management every time there is a problem at the terminals. They are doing quite a good job and we need to compliment Sapo management and say well done for the way in which they are managing things.”