TPT loses Danisa to private sector

Hector Danisa, assistant regional terminals executive for the Western Cape, has resigned from Transnet Port Terminals and left the Transnet group after holding a number of key positions at several ports. He joined Imperial Distribution as operations director for the Brandhouse contract on January 17. Imperial Distribution, specialising in dedicated contract logistics within the Imperial Logistics Consumer Products division, stores and ships product on behalf of Brandhouse, a joint venture between Diageo, the world’s largest alcohol beverage company, beer maker Heineken and Namibia Breweries. Enquiries to TPT about Danisa’s rather unexpected departure only yielded that his resignation had become effective on January 14. John Berry, chairman of the Cape Town Harbour Carriers’ Association, says of Danisa: “He did a sterling job and what is frightening is just when we are getting things back on track in Cape Town Container Terminal, we have the rug pulled out from under our feet again.” A senior shipping line operations executive who prefers to remain anonymous says: “Hector was consistent, he at least answered the phone and certainly tried hard to please his customers.” Danisa, a former business unit executive at Durban Car Terminal, also in the same portfolio at the Port Elizabeth terminals and the Ngqura Container Terminal, came to Cape Town a year ago as assistant to terminal regional executive Velile Dube. Dube was recruited by TPT from Toyota South Africa where he served as vice-president for marketing planning and communication. Danisa’s tenure in the Mother City was marked by a number of significant newly implemented TPT measures, among them Dual Cycle Operations, the use of ship-to-shore cranes to simultaneously load and discharge cargo from a vessel, and REFCON, a remote reefer monitoring system. His successor, in an acting capacity, is regional planning and logistics executive, Louis du Toit. He established a career in the port of Cape Town in 1981, working in the finance department for a decade. He then became group financial account for the Namibian Ports Authority and later port manager for Port Luderitz in Namibia. Du Toit returned to South Africa in 2005 and was appointed business unit executive (BUE) at Durban’s Pier 1 Container Terminal. Two years later he became BUE of the TPT School of Operations, which he founded. In 2009 he was sent to Saldanha as BUE at the multi-purpose terminal before his appointment last year as regional planning and logistics manager for the Western Region.