Fruit specialist slates NPA's poor long-term planning

'They're merely putting tiny bandages on a festering sore' Ray Smuts TWO decades in logistics have taught Delena Engelbrecht the value of thorough planning, a discipline she believes is not only "sadly lacking" in the export fruit industry but also in National Ports Authority and its future plans for Cape Town's container terminal. Engelbrecht is m.d. of logistics service provider GoReefers SA which has shipped 200 000 deciduous and citrus pallet exports over the past season, representing 16% of total exports. "My feeling is that the authority is only planning for now rather than long-term in Cape Town because it intends privatising (concessioning), so why invest significantly for someone else to reap the benefits a few years down the line? "There is no evidence of much-needed capital coming in right now as the terminal resorts to using second-hand and leased equipment. The NPA approach seems to me pretty much one of 'let's stay alive and afloat' and amounts to nothing more than putting tiny bandages on a festering sore." Colin Schultz, distribution manager of SANS Fibres, questions how much the National Ports Authority will spend in Cape Town (and Durban) in view of Coega. His company, with throughput of up to 12 000 TEUs a year, is Cape Town container terminal's largest single client. "Investment in Cape Town has got to happen and the NPA has indicated it will happen once an environmental assessment is complete," says Schultz, a member of Cape Town's port liaison forum. With 450 000 TEUs handled in the 2001/2 period in Cape Town - representing growth of 24% - the container terminal's problems earlier this year have been laid to rest for now. But Engelbrecht returns to her original point, the importance of planning. "If you have a plan you can change it but if you have none there is nothing to change. "Export pallets have increased by 50% since deregulation of the fruit industry some four years ago and I would say the biggest increase was in containers. "What worries me is that no one is taking into consideration the phasing out of porthole containers in about two years which is going to place huge strain on the export fruit infrastructure." Formed at the beginning of last year by four former Seatrade executives, GoReefers works at two specialities, negotiating for freight and local logistics. All its logistics clients are freight clients but some freight clients do not make use of the logistics arm. GoReefers has laid a firm foundation over the past year, adding a new 'full' client in Lona Trading to its small but significant customer base. Engelbrecht remains concerned at the fragmentation of the logistics business since deregulation and she maintains it is costing the entire fruit chain to its detriment. "There are a lot of new guys on the block who realise they can plan but don't know how because they don't know the product well enough. Playing a lot of different markets makes it all the more complicated to plan - something the export fruit export business is not strong on nowadays in any event," she says.