Unitary structure expected to replace wharfage soon

Alan Peat
NOW ALMOST one year old, the new ad valorem wharfage structure introduced last March has achieved an almost Shakespearian status in its description, but nothing else in the way of support from the freight industry.
"Much Ado About Nothing" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" were two of the descriptions bandied around in discussion of this recalculation - described in itself as "a clever piece of number-crunching from Portnet's point-of-view".
This all reflected the views of two freight industry commentators, when quizzed by FTW on this long-time contentious subject.
The story was that wharfage rates were originally dedicated to port maintenance, repair and development. But this soon changed, and the income was re-channelled into the general fiscus of what was then SATS (now Transnet).
The ad valorem aspect - basing wharfage on a cargo's value - was a major bone of contention. An extra charge, it was said, but with no services rendered.
And this latest recalculation? It is nothing more than a "juggling" of the wharfage rates and the maximum and minimum values, according to Gavin Cooper, chairman of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF) in the Cape. "Whoever did these adjustments certainly did them very cleverly if you're wearing a Portnet hat," he said.
While Portnet emphasised the "reduction" in wharfage rates when they announced the new structure last year, they said nothing about the minimal adjustments in the maximum and minimum values, and the practical effect that would have, Cooper added.
"A win-win situation from Portnet's point-of-view," he said. "It has all worked out so that - if anybody has made any saving at all - it's only a matter of a few cents."
That slight upward adjustment of the maximum wharfage - from R9 000 per harbour ton to R9 423 - however, was a "no-win" for containerised cargoes, Cooper added.
"It's exactly as I suggested at the time," he said. "As the rand has weakened, more and more container traffic is being thrown into the net of maximum wharfage.
"It might be helping high-volume, low-value bulk traffic, but for internationalcontainers it's a no-no."
However, bulk operators are also on a loser, according to Nolene Lossau, director of Worldwide African Logistics and Trading (WALT), and executive director of the SA Shippers Council.
"They (Portnet) adjusted the minimum value upwards," she told FTW, "so we made no real savings either."
Lossau also describes the whole exercise of altering the ad valorem wharfage as a "waste of time".
"What's the point of changing the formulae by a point or two," she said, "when it's all due to be dropped anyway."
Lossau expects a unitary levy to replace ad valorem wharfage by April - with that decision due to be finalised about now.