Mediation quells congestion media slanging match

EMOTIONS WERE running high in the battle about port congestion before the SA Federated Chamber of Commerce (Safcoc) - the combined Sacob and Nafcoc - stepped in to mediate in "a meeting of minds" to help solve the problem, according to Sacob policy consultant, Carol O'Brien. The shipping lines had failed to reach agreement with Portnet about compensation for the costs of congestion last year - estimated at more than R500-million - and the compensation formula to be applied in the immediate future. The shipper/exporter community, meantime - an innocent party in the congestion affair - was left facing a punitive port congestion surcharge of US$75 per container. A charge that SA Ports Authority c.e.o. Tau Morwe calculated would take about R1.3-billion a year from their pockets and, in turn, from the SA economy. But the parties were all at loggerheads about the issue, and a major media-slanging match between the lines and the port authorities was being conducted. This was where Safcoc joined in, intent on soothing the fevered brows in the industry, and facilitating a solution. Once Safcoc got all the parties - lines, port authorities, cargo owners and forwarders - together in a mediatory meeting, confrontation began to change to co-operation, said O'Brien. "The parties proved very willing to see each other's viewpoints," said O'Brien. The result of this was that, after considerable clearing of the air, the meeting proposed a set of solutions to reduce the congestion at the Port of Durban. These included four primary tactics: ¥ The formation of technical task teams to investigate ways and means of alleviating bunching. A slot-system solution was proposed; ¥ That the cargo owners would investigate - through their organisations - a variety of other options to re-direct cargo to other ports; ¥ That Portnet would look into the possibility of implementing an equalisation railway subsidy between alternative ports and Gauteng - and the finalisation of Durban Port's 2005 plan; ¥ That Durban port management would investigate contingency plans to allow for more flexibility in the port operations.