Unicorn challenges Portnet's latest increases

NEVER MIND Portnet's "fine the lines" scheme according to Melanie Schiemann, commercial manager of Unicorn SA - it isn't even here yet.
What is getting Schiemann's dander up is Portnet's annual increase in all its port dues - intended to be imposed originally from April 1, but extended at the last minute to May 1.
Just as the "latecomer fines" proposed by Portnet for the mainline carriers don't apply to Unicorn's coastal trade, there's a wharfage rates increase being imposed on the coastal lines which doesn't apply to export and import cargoes.
The ASL (Association of Shipping Lines) and ASABOSA (Association of Ships Agents and Brokers of SA) are currently lobbying on this theme.
This, along with all the other increased dues - harbour tug and pilot charges, for example - are above the IPI (industrial price index) inflation rate as well, she added.
"Without intending to be historically boring," said Schiemann, "I also can't see how they can justify continuing with wharfage for SA commercial cargoes. Road and rail don't pay this extraneous cost in hauling goods around the country, why should we?
"Think what that does to our competitiveness - R10-million down the wharfage drain last year. What for? It's an amount intended to cover the original, major capital costs of the ports' basic infrastructure. Most of this must have been amortised donkeys' years ago.
"It's still part of that old bugbear of Portnet being the "profitable" member of the Transnet stable - and being able to "cross-subsidise" the corporation's loss-making entities. I don't see why we should be a paying party to these book-juggling exercises."
Any increases - and even the basic charges themselves - should only be justified if they give you what you pay for, Schiemann added. "The Portnet service is not that high-level," she said. "And it's a bit difficult for them to justify the increases by talking about "port development, and additional services" when we don't get much out of it in the end."
It's all beginning to prove an argument for urgent privatisation, is how Schiemann sees it.
"We're sick-and-tired of being the victims of price hikes for which we get no value-added service," she said. "If we were in a private sector environment, and we weren't happy with what we were getting for our money, we could go to another service provider.
"But with Portnet in charge of the lot, we just have to sit back, and take what we get - which isn't a lot."