Recommendations to be presented to Cabinet
KEVIN MAYHEW
“STREAMLINING THE National Freight Logistics System” - a project of the Department of Transport (DoT) - will shortly put forward to Cabinet its recommendations for changes and adjustments to the main components in the supply chain, according to the DoT’s project leader for the initiative, Sharon Groenmeyer-Edigheji.
In a recent presentation to The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (South Africa) in Pretoria, she said that stakeholder perception audits of modes of transport and other vital players such as border posts revealed that only road and air freight were rated as efficient and positioned for success in the next ten years.
Its investigations included road, rail, ports, airfreight and border control, with the relevant government departments, private and parastatal (Transnet) bodies, who provided input to a cluster at director-general level.
“Our recommendations are aimed at improving the logistics delivery of South Africa in a global marketplace to eliminate inefficiencies that are making this country one of the most expensive in terms of logistics,” she told delegates.
It will influence turnaround times, punctuality and other vital issues in logistics that presently are seen as negative elements, particularly with regard to rail transport which has lost custom to road - and in the short term there appears to be no change expected in this trend, she says.
“It is incumbent on rail to improve itself to be competitive. There are some products ideally suited to rail and it must entice this traffic back,” she added. Part of the strategy is to enhance the efficiency of rail, partly through a separation between infrastructure and operations and the involvement of competition between operators, and partly through a more balanced approach to the manner in which costs between road and rail are defined.
In the short term the focus will be on improving rail’s overall service delivery, while in the medium term regulation will be used as a tool to ensure that road operators’ costs represent more closely the cost they impose on road infrastructure.
Issues of efficiency and capacity must be addressed as part of a focus on improving the overall effectiveness of our ports as conduits for improving South Africa’s export competitiveness, she said.
