Sapo withholds congestion stats for now

Alan peat OPAQUE TRANSPARENCY. That was how Nolene Lossau, executive director of the SA Shippers' Council (SASC), described the latest mystery surrounding congestion at SA’s main container ports. The trend in port congestion is now a completely unknown factor, with SA Port Operations (Sapo) having withdrawn its regular releases of port operational statistics, except those to the Container Liner Operators Forum (Clof), which uses them to create a graphic, day-on-day trend line as information for the shipping conferences on the SA trade. This ban on the figures, FTW was told, was "because of the negative impact overseas”, and the damage caused to the overall perception of the SA economy. FTW was however assured that this was a “temporary measure”. “But,” said Lossau, “I cannot understand why these figures are not available. “Why are they so confidential, when, in fact, they should be common knowledge.” Her reasoning for that statement is because of the importance of knowing what is happening with port congestion – a vital measuring tool for shippers who have to forward plan cargo movement, and need to know any possible adverse factors in port delays. And, Lossau added, it’s a very costly situation for shippers, and the SA economy in general. Her illustration of this monumental cost comes from the port congestion surcharge of US$100 per container at the port of Durban. In an off-the-cuff calculation, the 1.4-million containers which pass through Durban each year were multiplied by US$100 and by a factor of six to convert to rand terms. The total cost came to an estimated R840-m a year – or R70-m a month. “All this directly out of shippers’ finances and the SA economy generally,” said Lossau, “and into the pockets of the lines. “In the shipping industry, we are all working towards the same goal, so why are only some parties privy to this information.”