Line slates 'non-existent' port security

Ray Smuts
P&O NEDLLOYD'S Peter Odendaal was his usual courteous self as an alarmsystem instructed us to vacate the building forthwith and negotiate 14 steep stairways to street level. "Sorry about this, I didn't plan it," he responded with a chuckle.
Ironically, we had been discussing security, port security to be precise, at that very moment when hundreds of workers in the Cape Town's Standard Bank Centre - which also houses Mitsui-OSK Lines - downed tools and gathered outside in the warm sun to await the all-clear signal.
Before we were so rudely interrupted, Odendaal, the line's operations manager for Southern Africa and chairman of the Western Cape branch of the Association of Shipping Lines, had been expressing his misgivings about security within South Africa's ports.
"Security in our ports is virtually non-existent. Go to any port anywhere overseas and you will not get in without the right credentials. Not so here."
What concerns him, as it does port manager Sanjay Govan, is the lack of consistency displayed by security personnel in the Port of Cape Town and elsewhere.
One day the guard will be meticulous in applying the rules, right down to opening the vehicle's boot, the next no checks whatsoever are made and the visitor is simply waved through.
"I don't know what sort of training they have but they don't have too many skills," says Odendaal, adding that the draft White Paper on National Commercial Ports Policy issued by the Department of Transport specifies the need for adequate security in the ports. In this they will be subject to scrutiny by one of the committees to be set up, reporting to Government direct.
"The authorities clearly have to come up with some form of middle road where a standard has been set and is being applied."
Odendaal recalled a recent incident where cadets on the City of Cape Town reported being harassed and asked for money to be allowed back into the container terminal.