Truckers association adds voice to that of RFA

The Durban truckers’ body has come out firmly behind the Road Freight Association (RFA) actions in fighting the new proposed lowering of the permissible vehicle rear axle mass. It totally contradicts the country’s whole policy on the SA maritime industry, and the fact that sea transport – and the landside facility to move it – is the life blood of our manufacturing industry, according to Kevin Martin, MD of Freightliner Transport and vice-chairman of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) sister body, the Durban Harbour Carriers Association (DHCA). Behind this thinking, Martin told FTW, lies a whole overview of the maritime scene contained in The Maritime Doctrine for the SA Navy. In this it said that “90% of SA imports and exports in terms of value are carried by sea” and that “approximately 65% of SA gross domestic product (GDP) was generated by foreign trade in 1998 and it is estimated that 60 cents in every rand earned in SA is directly dependent on the sea”. Martin also pointed to a statement in July, 2008 by Castro Khwela – a senior Transnet executive – in which he said that “95% of Southern African Development Community (SADC) trade passed through the region’s eight ports and 98% of all imports and exports are carried by ship”. “As all this trade by sea is facilitated by the land facilities of road and rail moving the goods in and out of the ports,” he said, “on a generally agreed ratio of 20% rail to 80% road. “I think it is very important to see that tinkering with one component – such as axle limits on road vehicles – will have a major impact on the SA economy, especially our ability to market our commodities internationally in the world market-place. This, bearing in mind that 60 cents in every rand earned depends on this ability to compete.” Martin also highlighted that, with the SA industrial heart lying very far from the sea, our logistic chain already costs double (about 16%) that of our competition’s approximately 8% logistics costs. “Any increase in these costs,” he said, “will cost us market share and jobs.” Martin then cited a lengthy list of problems that will arise in practical terms from the DoT proposal. It will mean: A minimum of 15% decrease in pay load; an increase of a minimum of 15% in the cost of road transport; an increase of 15% MORE trucks on the roads; and inflation, food price and unemployment would rocket, he said. Martin also saw a problem with heavy containers. “As the definition of a secondary road is any road that is not a national (N) road or toll road,” he told FTW, “this means that our ports would be congested as heavy containers (a very large majority of containers are 30-ton gross due to the cost of shipping) would not be able to be transported as present road equipment would not be legal. Further, no abnormal vehicles can carry containers under other new proposed legislation.” The problem also extends directly into that abnormal transport sector. “Effectively, no abnormal loads could be moved as most of them move on secondary roads,” Martin said. “And, due to their condition, if the road cannot take 8 000-kg per axle they will not be able to take the 13 000-kg per axle – whether under cover of a permit or not.” He also cited the fact that the new ruling would contravene this country’s agreements under the Southern African Development Community protocol – with the new axle mass limit not being in line with our SADC agreement of 10 000-kg per axle. The DoT idea to “migrate” road traffic to rail also has its inherent drawbacks, according to Martin. “As part of its national infrastructure plan launch, Transnet stated that, to move containers out of the Port of Durban to Cato Ridge by rail would require a R3 billion upgrade,” he said. “But, they added, this was not on their planning boards or budget.”