Public/private sector
grouping vows to continue
its campaign
DESPITE TWO crime-free years, the private/public sector anti-theft grouping at the City Deep inland harbour in Johannesburg is still prepared to fork out over R1-million a year to keep the system going.
The container-operator grouping - trucking company Roadwing; Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC); SA Container Depots (SACD); and Transnet/ Spoornet - are willing to continue funding the operation to the tune of R300 000 each a year.
This to employ internal risk managers and to externally fund the police arm of the squad - maintaining the SA Border Police station at City Deep gates in totality. It also funds the Kempton Park-based anti-hijack squad and the SA Police stations at Kazerne and Cleveland to create a team capable of dealing with a range of crimes - especially container fraud, smuggling, hijacking, and theft of goods.
It's a permanent installation, said Isobel Louw, head of the Roadwing operation, and it is still paying-off for all of us.
It has kept us crime-free at City Deep for the last couple of years. A vital consideration in a high-risk crime area where a single hijacking can easily cost over a million rand.
But, while City Deep is now showing a clean sheet container theft-wise, the rail route to the terminal from the coastal port of Durban is subject to increasing theft from containers.
A problem here is in the general shift in SA sea trade from 20-foot (6-metre) to 40-ft (12-m) containers. With 20-ft units, the boxes can be loaded two to a rail truck - door-to-door, and not so susceptible to break-in and theft.
But the 40-ft boxes have to ride solo on rail trucks - with the doors exposed to break-in - and the theft-rate from these big boxes has increased dramatically in recent times.
But there's an answer to this, according to Louw.
Spoornet has developed what they term a bath-tub wagon, she told FTW. This is basically a metal plate welded to the end of the wagon which effectively seals the doors of the 40-ft container.
Some 500 of the wagon fleet have already been modified, with the remainder due to be completed soon. We should see a 100% improvement once all the trucks are done, said Louw.
Copyright Now Media (Pty) Ltd
No article may be reproduced without the written permission of the editor
To respond to this article send your email to joyo@nowmedia.co.za
