The crush of criss-crossing trucks and traffic at the Port of Durban and the “congested mess” it has caused, to paraphrase one transporter, has prompted road hauliers specialising in project cargo to ask why Richards Bay harbour isn’t used to bring in abnormal loads meant for Gauteng. Managing director of Africa Route Clearance (ARC) consultants, Phil Warren, said “Richards Bay is a beautiful port. It’s a big, open green-fields facility and the way north from it on the N2 towards Pongola past Piet Retief and Ermelo on the N17 is a clear route all the way without any width or height restrictions.” Never one to mince his words, Warren said in comparison “Durban at the moment is a dog’s breakfast on any given day of the week”. Thankfully, because ARC deals in excessive loads of 60 tons and up, such as the reactor they brought in for the Sapref refinery earlier this year, dealing with Durban’s congestion is not a regular headache for Warren. He nevertheless questioned the logic behind the dogged use of Durban for project cargo. “Why we’re still bringing abnormal loads in through Durban is anyone’s guess, especially considering that the way north from Richards Bay is virtually the same distance compared to going south on the N2 and up the N3.” According to another project haulier who spoke to FTW on condition of anonymity, the routes round the north and south from Richards Bay are “virtually equidistant, almost to the kilometre”. In fact, he said “the way up north is flatter and faster. It doesn’t have the same amount of traffic on it, it doesn’t have the hills and passes between Durban and Harrismith, and simply makes more sense every way you look at it, except when loads are meant for destinations such as port-side refineries”. All said, the same haulier also offered a conclusive reason why project cargo heads to Durban. “Richards Bay is not a container port so breakbulk carried on multi-purpose vessels out of necessity has to go to Durban.” Be that as it may, the logistical technicalities around port-side capacity specifications doesn’t mean heavy loaders have made peace with what appears to be a Transnet-run situation. “I don’t understand why Richards Bay hasn’t been upgraded to a container port,” said the anonymous haulier who, unlike ARC, deals with smaller abnormal loads that are far more frequently transported between Durban and surrounding industrial sites. Save to say, for him it may very well be a regular headache and one he reckons could be remedied if only Richards Bay took containers. “But I think it’s a lack of political will. Considering what’s happening in Durban, with all the
corruption stories in the press, it stands to reason that much happens behind closed doors that we don’t know about.” Also commenting on why Richards Bay is playing second fiddle to Durban, Warren said he believed it had something to do with volumes, the latter still being South Africa’s primary port, and that sustained throughput, however slow, was preferential from a marketing point of view. In the meantime Zululand Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which oversees business in Richards Bay, Eshowe, Empangeni and environs, confirmed that the region’s port did not handle containers. “I don’t know why that is,” a source at the Chamber told FTW. She also said she knew that there had been talks around a masterplan for development involving Richards Bay and the area at large. “But I cannot confirm whether turning the harbour into a container port is part of that plan,” she said. However, she did furnish FTW with the names, numbers and emails of several individuals at Transnet who could shed more light on the issue of project cargo and why the Port of Richards Bay isn’t better utilised. Unfortunately they cannot talk to FTW unless it’s done through “the right channels”. Sadly, those channels take time. And as comment and clarity from Transnet is still forthcoming, despite questions sent to them on July 17, throughput at Richards Bay “is either feast of famine” – in the words of Warren. Meanwhile in Durban, in the words of our anonymous haulier, the road situation “is an absolute clash of heavy industry traffic mixing with ordinary commuting traffic, much of it tourism based. “It’s entirely baffling and doesn’t have to be that way, and despite efforts made to relieve some of the congestion there is no real solution in sight.”
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Durban at the moment is a dog’s breakfast on any given day of the week. – Phil Warren
