Terry Hutson INDICATIONS BY the minister of Public Enterprises, Jeff Radebe, that government would call for bids to concession the Durban Container Terminal (DCT) before next yearÕs general election, have failed to convince other roleplayers. Radebe was reported to have said that government had a mandate from labour to go ahead with bringing in the private sector. Not so, says Randall Howard, general secretary of the South African Transport & Allied Workers Union (Satawu), who told FTW at the weekend that much modelling work needed to be done before the roles of both sides were understood. Howard said that although there was some agreement between labour and government on the role the private sector could have in port operations, a number of issues remained unresolved. These included job security, training, and issues such as medical and social care surrounding HIV/Aids in the workplace. ÒIt does not follow that because labour has agreed that the private sector has a role to play in port operations that DCT will automatically be concessioned,Ó he said. Howard said an SA Port Operations Restructuring Committee would meet to find a working model, involving management, the unions and government, and things would progress from there. He said the latest indication from government was that it was ready to keep all other terminals within the Sapo portfolio but let DCT go. Unions were not ready to agree to this. Radebe told a Black Business Portfolio meeting in Durban recently that apart from forestry assets, a further sale of MTN shares and the concessioning of DCT, no further privatisation was in the pipeline. His statement marks a radical turnaround in government thinking but matches reports that government is having a serious rethink.
