'Don't expect us to pay
for that' - SASC
Alan Peat
THE SHIPPING lines have no right to think about penalising SA shippers and importers with a massive congestion surcharge in the Port of Durban, if part of that cost relates to transhipment containers, according to the SA Shippers Council (SASC).
Transhipment boxes are excused the surcharge as the lines would not be able to recover extra costs from the overseas shippers, according to Nolene Lossau, SASC executive director. The reason, she added, because the transhipment at Durban is not always visible to the overseas shippers who book the cargo on through bills of lading.
They total some 14% of the containers moving through Durban, Portnet told FTW.
"But this is actually 28% of the container handling because each transhipment container has to be handled twice. In addition, the transhipment containers take up scarce space in the terminal whilst they are stored waiting for the on-carrying vessel," says Lossau.
"So this is about a third of the box movements at the port using up its scarce resources - to the detriment of local import or export container movement."
Lossau is not against Portnet getting extra business from transhipments through Durban, reckoned to be one of the world's cheaper transhipment hubs, but she is adamant that this should not hit SA shippers.
It has become obvious, she told FTW, that one of the reasons that Durban has become a congested port is because of the high volume of transhipment cargo moving through the port.
"In other words the lines have themselves contributed to the congestion by using Durban as a transhipment hub," she said.
"It appears as if they now wish to have the Southern African shippers pay for the congestion costs even though they themselves have contributed to this problem.
Ideally, the SASC would like to see the lines cutting back on their transhipment volumes at Durban and moving these transhipments to another SA port.
"This," said Lossau, "would release some of the scarce handling resources at the Durban container terminal (DCT) for local container movement.
"After all, should not the scarce SA resources be reserved for Southern African cargo rather than the international cargo - which in many cases could be shipped in competition to the Southern African cargo?"
