‘Several parties contribute to Pier 1 delays’ I REFER to the letter in FTW dated May 26, 2006 in response to an article published on May 12, 2006 regarding Pier 1 delays in which I am quoted as saying the forwarders and lines are ALSO to blame for delays. I wanted to make two points clear – that while delays to road transport lie mainly with Sapo (SA Port Operations), the broader issue is that other parties ALSO contribute to these delays i.e. without documents road transport cannot perform. They cannot make use of off-peak periods in order to contain costs and are forced to use whatever time is left to them to perform due to documentation not being available in time. Secondly, moving vessels to DCT only would not solve the problems (a suggestion made by the original letter-writer and a point I feel shows my support for the shipping lines concerned!). At a prior meeting held at DCT with Pier 1 staff I was informed that as at 10:30 that day they were still waiting for a shipping line to give them their list of ICLs for a vessel due to berth at 14:00 that day! It does not need a rocket scientist to see that containers discharged from that vessel could not be collected by transport before the next day – at the earliest – as CTOs cannot be processed by Sapo without this information being loaded into their computers. I also mentioned forwarders so I was not blaming the shipping lines exclusively. I am in full agreement with both writers that the problems mainly lie with Pier 1 but this does not excuse other parties not playing their part. Kevin Martin, Freightliner Transport, Durban.
