Stakeholders welcome chance to engineer change

GOVERNMENT HAS just released a second draft of the National Commercial Ports Policy and the Department of Transport has organised meetings with selected groups of stakeholders to allow them to make further submissions on points of concern. This lays to rest port users' concerns when the first draft was released that there would be no second draft - and no further chance to recommend changes. Government has - in this case - shown considerably more flexibility in its thinking than has previously been the case, and has actually released a draft of the White Paper to the stakeholders. It has also called for meetings with Safcoc, the National Port Users Forum, labour and certain other parties - asking for further comment from each. "This," said Safcoc's Peggy Drodskie, "is a delightful change to a policy of co-operation from the almost traditional confrontation that government has exercised in the past." At the time of going to print, the various bodies were in consultation with the authorities. FTW will report on these meetings as soon as the results become available.