The South African Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) has defended its decision to close down the Executive Committees (Excos) of the regional branches, arguing that centralising control away from Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth is necessary for progress.
News of the intended closures was first conveyed to chapter members and their respective Exco representatives at the end of last year, when several executives of Saaff’s head office in Johannesburg called a meeting in Cape Town.
Former vice-chairman of Saaff’s Western Cape Exco, Jonathan McDonald, said during the meeting that the executives had stated that Saaff intended to train up younger people so they could take over from older, regional representatives.
The details shared with Freight News about what transpired in this meeting have been withheld for now due to sensitive contractual arrangements between Saaff’s head office and industry experts still representing branch members in the various regions.
However, it is understood that on January 20, the Exco was officially informed that it would be closed down with immediate effect.
About a week ago, McDonald announced on his LinkedIn profile that Saaff “has taken a decision to dissolve the regional executive structures as part of a shift to a more centralised model. With that, the Western Cape regional executive comes to an end”.
Sweeping changes announced by Saaff’s head office in recent times include letters served on senior regional representatives in Durban, informing them that their services will be terminated by the end of April.
During an interview with Freight News last Wednesday, Saaff chief executive Dr Juanita Maree said that the centralisation was in the interests of aligning the association with globally accepted best-practice models.
She said in the interests of inclusivity and gathering empirical data, Saaff had to move away from siloed management at regional level.
For enhanced service delivery to its members, it’s been decided to increase reliance on working groups for resolving industry issues across the cargo sector, including project implementation, terms of reference, as well as outcomes and transparency.
In a letter sent out to the association’s members and dated February 17, Maree says “Saaff is entering its next phase of institutional maturity.”
She adds: “The operating model incorporated specialist consultants whose deep industry expertise – in many cases spanning more than four decades – contributed meaningfully to the association’s progress and to the sector more broadly.
“We acknowledge and value this contribution.
“As part of the organisation’s evolution, the operating model is now being realigned to strengthen governance and institutional effectiveness. Core services are being re-integrated from the regional consulting model into the Saaff Secretariat.”
On this point, various regional representatives have told Freight News that it simply doesn’t make sense why head office would want to do this – remove regional efficacy especially insofar as immediate problem solving is concerned.
Maree contends that Saaff can simply not carry on as it used to, arguing that it is akin to still wanting to use fax machines in the digital age.
She said a lot of changes at Saaff had to do with accomplishments reached at the National Logistics Crisis Committee (NLCC), the Presidency’s public-private stakeholder engagement initiative on which she serves.
To serve on the NLCC but still use old-fashioned feedback methods from the regions – which centralisation serves to change – is no longer feasible, Maree says.
She claims that the last two years at the NLCC have once again confirmed the strength of Saaff’s brand, and that “we work for SA Inc.
“I have seen how the government works and what they want”.
Fears of losing out on institutional knowledge by letting senior port professionals go and juniorising regional representation are also unfounded, Maree says.
She argues that it’s time to bring new blood into Saaff, adding that she has the academic backing of the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
“We want to migrate and embrace it. We’re not losing, we’re building. We’re getting stronger.”
This is not the view on the ground, though. At least six long-standing members from Cape Town and Durban say Maree is fundamentally steering Saaff away from its DNA – prioritising the immediate cargo concerns of members over political point-scoring at the NLCC.
“The structural changes that have been made are materially going to impact how Saaff serves its members in the regions,” McDonald says.
Maree disagrees.
She says nothing has substantially changed, adding that neither she nor the board understand why structural improvements at Saaff should be discussed in the media.
