Moving house keeps people employed

A team of women in Port Elizabeth has been packing and unpacking homes for more than 11 years. Headed by specialist house and vehicle exporter and importer Nadene Butcher of Ibhayi Freight, the women would otherwise be unemployed. “They have been working with me for the past 10 or 11 years, and are well trained. We have very few complaints about breakages,” says Butcher. At present, the team is doing more unpacking than packing. “We are seeing more people coming home than going at the moment,” she says. Ibhayi clears both exports and imports of households, and also arranges for delivery. “We try hard to clear the cargo before it arrives in order to reduce costs and delays for our clients.” A number of people are also bringing their cars and motorcycles back with them. Ibhayi arranges both ro-ro and containerised importation of vehicles, she says. Containers are usually unpacked at the new house within a day in order to save on demurrage and labour costs. Families leaving South Africa are also being more selective about what they take. There has been a definite shift away from full containers to groupage cargo. This creates its own challenges when packing the household as any items of furniture must be individually crated in order to prevent damage. All other items are boxed and then loaded onto crates where they are shrink-wrapped before being despatched for consolidation. “We don’t let clients wait, and send it with whichever shipping line offers the fastest delivery time,” she says.