Port users reject latest NPA tariff

No improved efficiency - no extra cash, says Rennie Alan Peat THE SHIPPING industry - both lines and shippers - are up in arms over the latest National Ports Authority (NPA) tariffs, due for imposition on April 1 (FTW January 24, 2003). The basic complaints are that port users object to paying more for no greater service at the ports; there is no guarantee that the port authority’s massive profits each year are all being sunk into port development; and the tariffs are not being reduced as the NPA promised at the initiation of port tariff reform last year. “We want to know what we’re paying our money for,” said Dave Rennie, c.e. of Unifeeder and chairman of the Container Liner Operators Forum (Clof), “and where it’s going.” Although the NPA claims that - because its tariff increases are below the current inflation level, they are “real” decreases - the industry is not convinced. “Basically, said Nolene Lossau, director of Worldwide and executive director of the SA Shippers Council (SASC), “when cargo dues were brought in, we were assured that it would be a three-year phase-in, with reductions each year. “They claim that it’s a “real” reduction, but we object to cargo dues increasing at all.” Under “what they are paying for”, the lines are looking for clarity on some anomalies on certain charges in the tariff, according to Rennie. He also stressed that “service guarantees” were the key to the lines’ attitude to increases. “No improved efficiency - no extra cash,” is how Rennie described it. “There is concern by Clof that tariff reform must go along with service level guarantees.” Both the industry bodies are equally concerned about the NPA’s massive profits from its tariffs - estimated at close to R2-billion a year. “There is a need for the NPA to spend increased income on capital development at the harbours,” said Rennie. “We don’t mind an acceptable return against investment. But their bottom line - is it going to pay the shareholder (Transnet and eventually government) a dividend, or be spent on improving facilities?” Lossau equally objects to the monies being channelled into Transnet. “If we were convinced that the money was being re-invested in the ports, we’d be content,” she told FTW. “If they could assure us that all the revenues, after costs were deducted, went into development, we’d be happy. “If we could be assured that none of it was siphoned off into Transnet, we’d accept.” But both bodies feel that they are having to pay more for less efficiency, that the profits are not necessarily going where they should, and that the NPA’s tariff reform promise of an annual reduction in port charges is not being fulfilled.