A LACK of common focus between the private sector ship repairers and Portnet was proving to be a major obstacle to growth in the ship repair industry in South Africa, said Jens Nydahl, managing director of International Marine and Construction (IMAC).
I believe that Portnet often fails to fully comprehend the competitive nature of the industry or the need to provide each customer with a quality and price competitive service in their dry docks.
According to Nydahl this can be seen in the poor state of the facilities, which in some cases had been built in the 1920s and 1930s. He also referred to a substandard level of commitment of many of their dockyard staff. He said further that Portnet's approach as a local monopoly was shown by its attitude over price, referring to a 20% hike from 1 April.
Unlike in the private sector, where each player is forced to take the market price for his product service, and adjust costs and margins accordingly, Portnet takes its costs, inflated as they may be, and adds its required margin on top of that. The only clear way forward in my opinion would be the total privatisation of all ship repair facilities in this country, to ensure high productivity and a cost-effective service to foreign ship owners.
From recent discussions with Portnet he said it was clear the privatisation issue had been taken away from Portnet senior personnel and handed over to the Department of Trade & Industry.
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