Road Freight Industry Council gets the cold shoulder

THE ROAD Freight Association (RFA) has hit out at government’s reticence to act on a proposal for the establishment of a Road Freight Industry Council (RFIC) – a unified voice for all the stakeholders. This follows approaches by FTW to the SA Shippers’ Council (SASC), the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) and the Durban Harbour Carriers' Association (DHCA), a section of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) – only three of the large number of major freight industry bodies invited to the RFIC’s foundation meeting in the early part of the year – for an update on their feelings about the proposed council. Although Naamsa’s executive manager Norman Lamprecht, SASC’s executive director, LM Pelser, and DHCA’s chairman and vicechairman Malcolm Sodalay and Kevin Martin all threw in their support of the concept, none of them had been further approached on the subject. The reason, said Gavin Kelly, the RFA’s technical and operations manager, was government reluctance to take matters further. He told FTW he was tired of knocking on government doors to present the proposals and only meeting with the sounds of silence. “The government demanded a plan from industry quite some time ago,” he said. “But, when we respond with our carefully thought out proposal, all we get is deathly silence.” The only thing left, he added, is to request a meeting with the director general or minister of transport – and hope that high-level talks may force the government go-ahead. It’s the de-stabilising effect of the forthcoming national elections that’s causing the government’s tardiness, according to RFA’s outspoken head honcho, Sharmini Naidoo. “The government has acknowledged that they have received our document,” she told FTW, “but we’re not getting any response to it. “I’d say the problem is they don’t know who’s still going to be there after the election, and they don’t want to make any decisions about new issues until the political situation is again stabilised.” This current limbo in which the RFIC finds itself is a far cry from the grand fanfare that greeted the government’s call on the freight industry for a representative body to negotiate with the national authorities, and create a sound future for the industry. The original justification for the RFIC, according to Naidoo, was that it included the opportunity to “closely engage with policy makers, influence government policy, and contribute to the growth aspirations of the country.” But, she added, the present government reticence to take any further action has rather dashed those hopes for the time being.