Funds approved ‘hopelessly late
RAY SMUTS
TARDINESS BY the Transnet board in approving expenditure for 591 additional reefer plug points at Cape Town container terminal has resulted in their ‘missing the boat’ for the new fruit season.
South African Port Operations is as disappointed as shippers as the installation will take at least thee months.
“I would have hoped to have them in by now,” says the terminal’s business unit manager Oscar Borchards. “It’s simply not good enough for the fruit industry,”
says Sapo’s technical manager
Gys Ehlers.
In August Borchards told FTW he hoped the Transnet board would grant its approval before the end
of this year in order to increase the total number of plug points
to 2 000.
Ehlers, apart from confirming that Transnet had been “hopelessly late” in approving the funds, told FTW: “Right now we have 1 392 points but made a commitment to industry that we would have 2 000 points operational by the end of January. The entire project will however only be completed by the end of May.
“We are adding another 330 points and although the electric network will not be in place we will fire them up with leased electric diesel generating sets.
“Over and above that, we have seven mobile power plugs that we will use at the rail terminal, giving us another 280 units which brings my total to 2 002 by the end of January.
Stuart Symington, CEO of the Fresh Producers Exporters Forum, also expressed disappointment at the delay, saying:”Transnet deals with many industries, some very lucrative like oil, and you simply do not know where you are in the pecking order.”
