A MAJOR international joint venture will be a main player in the privatisation of SA ports.
The Grindrod Group - one of South Africa's oldest and largest transportation operations - and the port management specialists, Australian-based P&O Ports, have amalgamated their resources to form Southern Terminals.
With the restructuring of state assets having started, this is expected to progressively move to encompass the ports, where the parastatal Portnet currently retains a near-monopolistic control of port infrastructure, But, for example, a recent public statement by Department of Transport director general Ketso Gordhan, would seem to indicate that this will soon change. According to Gordhan (FTW April 11, 1997), DoT-controlled transport functions (including the maritime industries) will soon fall under the control of a private sector-run series of agencies and that government transport monopolies will end.
There is a strong need to mobilise private capital and skills to support the levels of investment needed to handle the growing volumes of containerised cargo moving through SA ports, said Captain Dave de Wet, director of Grindrod.
Ship turnaround times must be kept as short as possible to minimise costs, he added, and there is an equally great need to involve new, emerging finance houses and port labour in the transformation.
We need to bring together the right mix of foreign and local expertise and capital, and Southern Terminals will be a vehicle to achieve this, De Wet said.
The foreign partner in this deal, a division of P&O Australia, is no newcomer to the port management scene.
P&O Ports undertook the world's first such port reorganisation when the Malaysian To page 16 From page 1 Port Klang was privatised in 1985. It also now owns and operates facilities in China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Argentine and the Philippines. It also has a port management development on the SA doorstep as the main player and operator of the now-privatised container terminal in the Port of Maputo in Mozambique.
The combined experience and strength of P&O Ports and Grindrod will be a major force in the future development of port infrastructure and the privatisation of container terminals in SA ports, said De Wet.
