Motlohi gets the thumbs up after fruitful shipper forum

Last week’s first meeting between the Cape Town Harbour Carriers’ Association and new Cape Town container terminal executive, Moshe Motlohi, went off “like a bomb”, in a manner of speaking. Just as well, given huge member concern over a number of unresolved issues, topped by continuous downtime of the Navis terminal system and resultant additional costs to hauliers. John Berry, chairman of the CTHCA, tells FTW how impressed he and fellow members were at Motlohi’s pragmatic approach. “It was like a breath of fresh air. He has introduced a 24-hour manned gate operation on a three month trial basis, which allows us to enter and exit the port between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m, which never used to happen before.” Berry says Motlohi also shared with HCA members his approach to “changing the mindset” toward servicing clients and being more productive in the terminal. “They are seriously looking at Navis and have stopped the operation at Durban’s Pier 1 until the problems have been ironed out.” Also at the meeting was freight industry ‘firebrand’, Peter Newton, who has written Nozipho Damasane, TPT’s chief operating officer, to say: “Motlohi made a really excellent impression on some justifiably embittered hauliers suffering from years of neglect and abuse. “Rome was not built in a day and no reasonable person expects this but encouragingly, there have been a couple of small improvements already. “Throughout today’s meeting, Moshe was entirely rational, frank and honest, and holds out great promise for meaningful (operational) improvement, even if some facets are going to be somewhat gradual.” Hopefully, by the time Motlohi meets with the HCA one month hence, he will have further good news to impart.