Southern African ports should co-operate, not compete

Rather than competing against each other, African ports should be exploiting the opportunities that cooperation and integration can provide, says Tau Morwe, former CEO of Transnet National Ports Authority. “If ports worked together far more could be achieved, but we are too focused on competing,” he said at the third annual Women in Maritime conference that recently took place in Cape Town. “If one looks at the European system then the importance of port cooperation and partnerships is evident. These ports seamlessly move cargo between them with the main characteristic being the coordination of supply chain activities,” he said. “There is more cooperation and coordination which results in an efficient regional infrastructure and a transport and logistics system where economic benefits are reaped by all. But this is not the case in Africa. We are focused on competing.” He said if African ports worked together they could create key competencies within the region for the benefit of all. “The Durban port is currently facing major challenges around dredging because of maintenance problems and the dredgers are all out. So we now have to run helter skelter to the Chinese or the Americans for help. Within the region, if we were cooperating and integrating, we could easily have created capacity to assist each other with dredging, which is really the most obvious of examples, but there are many others where mutual benefits could be achieved.” He said technical and maritime expertise was another area where African ports had for far too long been depending on Europe for help. “That does not mean we must not have relationships with these countries, but we can also work with each other in the region – be it to improve our technical skills or reduce traffic congestion or cargo storage fees.” He said as much as competition was key in the modern port authority environment, it was just as important to understand the role of cooperation going forward. “One of the biggest challenges in the region is that individual countries have political changes all the time and so nothing is implemented over time. In my tenure at Transnet I must have had five different ministers of transport come in and each had their own rules and agendas and changes were made.” Morwe said this was the case for most countries on the continent – not only South Africa. “So if you were to go to the transport minister of South Africa, Mozambique and Kenya now and ask them what the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa is they would probably not know. We have to change that,” he said. “As industry we have to work together to make sure the political will is there, remind ourselves and governments of the SADC protocols and start implementing them.” He said unless regional approaches were taken to problems around shipping no change would be effected in the long run. INSERT & CAPTION Unless regional approaches are taken to problems around shipping no change will be effected in the long run. – Tau Morwe