Service levels at combi terminal
also under fire
Ray Smuts
FIRST THE good news. The Association of Shipping Lines is satisfied with security within Cape Town's container terminal. Now the bad news: The same cannot be said for the remainder of the port.
In conversation wth FTW, Peter Odendaal, chairman of the association's Cape Town branch, said Portnet should now strive to 'mirror the container terminal's security success elsewhere.
Security is indeed high on the agenda of the Port Liaison Forum's next meeting to be held in the city at 10:00 on July 26.
I learnt this week that a number of robberies had taken place in the port recently, including at least one on a Japanese fishing vessel.
The Japanese don't relate very well to violence and Cape Town very much needs to retain the lucrative tuna fishing business, says a prominent shipping source.
Also up for discussion by the PLF on July 26 are problems within the combi-terminal where users are unhappy over a number of issues, service levels for one. They complain that they have been unable to come to terms with Portnet on a number of issues including the high cost of overtime, unreasonable working hours of staff and the high-handedness of terminal management.
Referring to the appointment of Malcolm Green as port services manager (FTW July 14, 2000), Odendaal commented: He is an extremely capable manager and we have no problem with him in any role. Among his many successes have been the 'open gates' policy and the Cosmos switch-on.
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