Mike Economou . . . 'Sapo is making a mockery of any shipping schedule.' Ray Smuts WAKE UP and get your act together! This was the indictment from an exasperated Mike Economou, MSC's Cape regional director, last week as he accused South African Port Operations (Sapo) of "crippling the nation" by disregarding the urgency of the situation in South Africa's ports. In what has to be his strongest condemnation of Sapo and National Ports Authority to date, he told FTW: "They simply do not see the urgency of the matter. "The ramifications are endless and neither Sapo nor NPA accept any criticism. They see it as personal criticism rather than in the context of tremendous concern that we as a nation are not going to survive under the present conditions." Economou's condemnation coincided with MSC's annual 'thank you' get-together for clients as 25 vessels, seven bearing the MSC insignia, lay off anchor at Durban and as Captain Salvatore Sarno, chairman of MSC in South Africa, cancelled his trip to the Mother City in order to meet with Sapo's chief executive Tau Morwe. In an e-mail message to the gathered assembly, Sarno said he preferred not to ask for the Morwe meeting to be postponed at the risk of perhaps getting one only a month later. "I am meeting with Tau Morwe to plan a common action between the Durban container terminal and the shipping industry so that Sapo will give all the ships the service for which they are getting paid in European tariffs." (See page 12). Having read Sarno's message, Economou told guests: "Needless to say the situation is damaging to all stakeholders in the ports and it is absolutely imperative that we as a shipping fraternity continue to fight to ensure that these delays do not occur." While paying tribute to Sapo for the dramatic improvement in Cape Town's container terminal, Economou asserted this sentiment did not apply to marine services. He accused the division of "actually downscaling over weekends at the expense of the stakeholders." This is clearly a national problem rather than applicable to Cape Town alone. "We have a 23% increase in tariffs and with as many ships as MSC has it is financially crippling ($US 15 000 a day per vessel) to have them all staying outside the Port of Durban, trying to divert to Port Elizabeth, trying to seek a haven somewhere along the South African coast. "While we seek to do that Sapo is making a mockery of any shipping schedule and they should be held fully responsible for that." Told that Morwe would be in Cape Town the following day for a media networking lunch, Economou said: "You can tell Tau Morwe that I want to know what he is doing to address the inadequacies of the marine division and what he is doing about the inadequacy of investment in the terminals. Sapo, to his mind, clearly does not understand the urgency of the situation and meeting after meeting has resolved nothing, he said. "There is an old saying 'What you say I can no longer hear, what you do will speak loudly."
