Is TNPA rethinking the dig-out port?

There’s a growing feeling among various high-level freight executives that there may be a TNPA rethink taking place – either about the overall feasibility of the dig-out port or the dating of its planned opening. According to Dave Watts, maritime director of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff), when sections of the freight industry previously asked for information on the progress of the port, a full-scale presentation was almost always immediately organised by TNPA. But now, Watts said, one senior exec had said that when info had been requested, there had been only the sound of silence. And the need for a rethink is not illogical. Quite pragmatic in fact. Before the global economic collapse in 2008 – about the same time as the idea of the dig-out was in its enthusiastic conceptual stage – container volumes were growing at a rate of 11-12% a year. But the crisis in 2008, followed by another dip in 2012/13, threw those figures out of the window and left trade growth in SA below the international average of 5%. And the dig-out trumpet blasts of 2008 had suddenly become a mere splutter. Now, in bureaucracies like TNPA, after you’ve had a plus mark in your business book of life – because of your backing of the dig-out port, for example – how could you ever admit to being wrong and get a minus stamp? Without knowing what is happening to the port, any private sector business investment related to its arrival is now a big risk. And without advance info, how can you plan ahead? Possibly it’s the same with the Salisbury Island in-fill. It’s the interim protection against the present container capacity of the Port of Durban becoming overstrained – a relief valve if you like. And FTW was told at this time last year that the in-fill project had “become more urgent. We’re pushing for the earliest date we can bring capacity on-stream”. That was if the harbour was not to become heavily congested before the dig-out port began operations. But our latest query on the project was met with the following response from TNPA. “Plans for developing Salisbury Island for additional container capacity are still as per the Port Development Framework Plan made public during 2014. “There are no further committed details that can be made public at this stage.” Now, if you look at that plan, you’ll see nothing in writing about Salisbury Island. Indeed, the only reference to it is on the layout map headed: Port of Durban - Medium Term Layout [2042] – where you’ll see the abutting Pier 1 in-fill completed. Nothing about the smaller, pressure valve in-fill proposed when TNPA took over Salisbury Island from the SA Navy. But what’s “more urgent” about 2042 – some 27 years down the road? And what’s now planned to happen about the dig-out port? And does this mean that the latest growth figures have been analysed and a rethink is taking place about both Salisbury Island and the dig-out port? Ask TNPA – and the best of luck. If you get a reply let us know. We can’t. INSERT The need for a rethink is not illogical but quite pragmatic in fact.