South Africa has added
its support to plans by the
African Union (AU) to set up
an African ‘cabotage’ regime
to ensure that only Africanowned
vessels can trade
within the continent’s coastal
waters, Sobantu Tilayi, chief
operations officer of the South
African Maritime Safety
Authority (Samsa) told FTW
last week.
In its African Maritime
Transport Charter, the AU
has stipulated in detail how it
plans to introduce cabotage
laws that will ensure that only
vessels owned or registered by
African countries can trade
within its coast.
According to the AU,
this is intended to curb the
dominance of foreign shipping
lines trading along Africa’s
coastline while at the same
time increasing intra-African
trade.
Tilayi said this was in line
with South Africa’s own plans
for its coastline which was
why it was in full support of
the AU’s intentions.
“Samsa is very clear – we
want to see South Africancontrolled
shipping within
our own waters. Our trade,
like the rest of Africa’s,
is dominated by coastal
economies and largely driven
by resource export. The bulk
of this is being moved on
foreign vessels with no benefit
to us.”
He said in this regard the
organisation was working
hard towards establishing
a South African fleet and
implementing laws that would
see cargo in South African
waters only carried on the
back of a local fleet of vessels
or that of an African-flagged
ship.
He said if Africa wanted to
benefit from maritime trade
then cabotage was the only
way forward.
“This is also the only
feasible way to really grow
intra-African trade while
at the same time allowing
us to develop the maritime
transport infrastructure of the
continent.”
While there has been some
industry resistance, Tilayi said
he understood hesitancy to
change, but did not think that
introducing cabotage laws for
South Africa or Africa would
impact negatively on shipping.
“America has cabotage. It
is nothing new. We have no
control at present over our
tonnage in this country and
that is the one area where we
do need to get some form of
control.
Tilayi said the development
of African maritime trade
remained high on the AU
agenda and therefore also on
the SA agenda.
“This year has been
announced as the year of
maritime and the introduction
of cabotage laws for South
Africa is one of the aspects
we are pushing. This is not
something that is going
to disappear and we have
already seen some interest
from industry with big players
coming forward to meet and
talk to us about this.”
While he would not
elaborate on this, he said
Samsa was convinced that
cabotage would be for the
better of South Africa.
Industry, however, has
retaliated saying there is not
enough cargo to sustain a
local shipping fleet, while
South African tax and labour
laws negatively impact on the
registration of a local fleet.
Durban-based transport
lawyer, Andrew Robinson,
said at least 12 pieces of
legislation would have to be
addressed to make it viable for
any shipping liner to register a
fleet locally. And this was just
the beginning of the process.
“The introduction of
cabotage is not as simple as
the government would have
everyone believe and it will
have a massive impact on
trade along Africa’s coast.”
The AU is currently in the
process of getting as many
African countries to sign the
African Maritime Transport
Charter, a document South
Africa has indicated it is
willing to sign.
CAPTION
Sobantu Tilayi … ‘Cabotage the only way for Africa to benefit from
maritime trade.’
