Ro-ro industry spends $3bn a year to combat piracy

Despite a massive decline, piracy remains one of the biggest threats to shipping in Africa. “We continue to spend a lot of time and money strategising and anticipating and just being prepared for attacks in an effort to ensure the safety of our crews, our cargo and our vessels,” said Vitesh Ramphal, head of Africa for Hoegh Autoliners. And while there have been fewer incidents taking place, Africa’s waters remain as dangerous as ever and carriers have to be as vigilant as ever. Ramphal said the ro-ro industry alone continued to spend around $3 billion a year to combat piracy. “The Gulf of Aden especially is still a very huge risk for us as we have at least ten vessels a month in these waters. Fighting piracy or preventing it costs money and somebody has to foot that bill. It costs money to maintain a vessel’s speed at a level that pirates can’t board – or to go further out to sea where they are maybe not operating. The piracy industry has created a complete new industry within the maritime sector to manage piracy. It is heavily taxing and it takes the focus away from our core business which is to transport goods.” Ramphal said while piracy was clearly a massive problem, just as worrying was the growing number of incidents while vessels were berthed at African ports. “Ship arrest has become a very real concern in our industry while cargo theft in ports has been on the increase. We have had incidents where all the documents are in place but the cargo cannot be found on the vessel or in the port,” he said. And the problem is exacerbated due to many African ports not having a quick turnaround of vessels. “The longer we are berthed, the higher the risk of either ship arrest or cargo theft,” said Ramphal.