THE NATIONAL Commercial Ports Policy - designed by the Department of Transport (DoT) after in-depth discussions with port user bodies - should be passed by parliament about now, then gazetted soon after.
This follows the previous departmental assurance to FTW that they were pushing for finalising the policy by about end-February.
But this promptness is likely to be followed by a slow passage into full implementation, according to contacts in the port user community.
The almost insurmountable problem, FTW was told, is that - after the initial parliamentary approval - the actual move towards final implementation will then be in the hands of the Department of Public Enterprises and Transnet, which effectively "own" the current Portnet set-up.
"This," a source told FTW, "is asking them to drive the policy into
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place, but - at the same time - asking them to organise their own disintegration."
The procedure - with so much vested interest involved - is "likely to be a time-consuming affair", he said.
The feeling in the private sector is that the National Ports Authority (NPA) - which will be the day-to-day driver of the policy - should be moved out from under the Transnet umbrella, and placed under the guidance of the minister of transport.
But, despite this having been a submission from the port users to the DoT at the green paper stage of the policyÕs passage, the final version still does 'not implement that move and still stays "very loose" in its definition of the implementation procedure.
Port users, therefore, now expect a lengthy wait before the privatisation (termed "concessioning" in the policy) of the various port functions is put into place.
Implementation of port policy
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