Industry stakeholders have rejected as impractical a suggestion by government that they opt for permits to transport high cube containers. Industry has repeatedly called on government to revisit the legislation and change the height restriction from 4.3m – which becomes mandatory from January next year – to 4.5 or 4.6m.
Regulation 224 of the National Road Traffic Act (NRTA) makes it illegal to transport high cube containers on flat deck trailers because the height exceeds 4.3m.
“Our view is that the issue is not Regulation 224 but the flat deck trailers that the carriers and operators use instead of the low bed or skeletal trailers,” said the Department of Transport’s John Motsatsing. He said if industry was insistent on not replacing flat deck trailers with low beds or skeletals they could opt for Section 81 of the NRTA which creates an exception to regulation 224. “It makes it possible for carriers and operators to apply for an abnormal load permit,” he said.
Motsatsing said industry continued to cite laborious processes and huge costs as the reasons why they did not want to go the permit route and were therefore intent on seeing the height restriction changed. Durban Harbour Carriers’ Association (DHCA) chairman Sue Moodley agreed that it was laborious and she said permit offices in the various provinces would simply not be able to cope with these applications which in turn would result in major congestion.
“When it comes to abnormal permits operators have to apply for trip permits. Period permits are not issued,” she said. According to Kevin Martin, a former chairman of the DHCA, this would mean an operator would have to apply for a permit for every single high cube container moved. Permits are also issued per province.
“A single high cube moving from Durban to Johannesburg would require three trip permits for the three provinces it moves through,” he said. It is estimated that permit offices would see around 2500 permit applications per day on average. “These offices simply do not have the capacity to handle these volumes and it will result in delays,” said Martin.
According to Gavin Kelly, operators moving abnormal loads in Gauteng were already struggling to get permits out of the permit offices timeously. “Permits could work but operators would have to be issued permits for a period of time to make it viable,” he said. It remains uncertain whether government would be open to introducing period permits.
According to a spokesman for the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Port Liaison Forum, a submission was being drafted that would be presented to the DoT within the next few weeks.
“We really have very little time left to come up with a viable solution. We cannot afford to waste any more time,” he said.
