Truckers’ complaint ‘nonsense’ – TPT

The Cape Town container truckers were up in arms again last week, protesting about an unannounced one-hour stoppage at the Cape Town container terminal (CTCT) first thing on the Tuesday morning – after a two-hour shutdown the previous Thursday morning, followed by a one-hour closure in the afternoon. “This time, the gate was shut between 06:00 and 07:00,” said John Berry, head of the Cape Town Harbour Carriers’ Association (CTHCA). “There was no notice given once again, and the reason was said to be a system fault – one of the many regular excuses that we hear.” Although he described the result of the closure as “not too bad”, he did complain about trucks having to queue up outside the terminal gate waiting for the re-opening. “People have labour on stand-by waiting for delivery of the containers – and who pays for this waste of time?” Berry asked. But the truckers’ moan was “all nonsense”, according to Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) terminal executive, Richard van Schalkwyk. “We do a system re-boot every Tuesday morning,” he told FTW. “It’s a planned shutdown each week at 06:00, and all the harbour carriers know this.” And it was not an hour, he added – saying that the first re-boot failed, and at 06:20 the second was tried. “The system came back-up at 06:30,” said Van Schalkwyk, “and the first vehicle was processed at 06:37, immediately followed by eight other trucks before 07:00. “We obviously can’t give any advance notice when a system fault like this suddenly happens.”