‘Green’ rebuff drives up cost of CT extension

RAY SMUTS
FURTHER delays to the proposed 300-metre stack extension of Cape Town Container Terminal - brought on by government criticism of a flawed environmental impact assessment submitted by the National Ports Authority (See page 1) – could easily drive the cost from R2.2 billion to R3.6 billion, says Sanjay Govan, NPA port manager in the Mother City. “We are not happy with the decision to set aside approval of the EIA but glad it has at last been made, 18 months later, so that we can understand the way forward. “We obviously understand the reasons for the delay although it is not in the best interest of our business,” says Govan The NPA, tasked by the minister to carry out further work on the project and report back to him, met in Cape Town on Monday afternoon (May 15) to appoint two consortia; a South African group to investigate the minister’s recommendation of a solution in an “inland” terminal and an international company to further investigate the criticised CSIR studies. “We were somewhat taken aback by the minister’s criticism of the CSIR as it has always represented high standards to us and we have worked with them on many matters throughout the country. “To complete the work requested by the minister in two months is cutting it rather tight but we must get things going as these delays are impeding our efficiency in the port and with the current actual growth in containers we are going to run out of space.” • The proposed extension is designed to increase stack capacity of around 750 000TEU to 1.5 million TEU annually.