‘Archaic’ regulations push up transport costs

Importing of project cargo remains
a major concern and challenge
especially due to insufficient
handling equipment and berthing
delays, says Carl Webb, managing
director of Project Logistics
Management (PLM).
“Knowledge, experience and
planning are crucial to project
logistics, but importing abnormal
cargo is very challenging –
especially when the goalposts are
continuously being moved by the
port operators.”
Webb says due to a lack of
suitable handling equipment at the
South African ports, they are now
required to land the cargo direct to
trailer.
“Berthing delays are the norm
resulting in vehicles standing idle
waiting to load,” he told FTW. “We
recently had an experience of a
vessel being delayed in berthing for
four days, incurring demurrage in
excess of R 500 000.”
According to Webb
abnormal permit restrictions
and implementation of archaic
regulations have resulted in
transport costs spiralling upwards.
“South Africa has one of the
highest landside logistics costs in
the world, yet the abnormal load
regulations are creating even higher
costs. One example of this is the
fact that abnormal vehicles are not
permitted to transport normal cargo
on the empty leg of a trip,” he said.
“This results in the vehicles having
to travel empty to their bases or
load points, not only increasing
the number of heavy vehicles on
the already overtaxed national
road infrastructure, but wasting
thousands of litres of diesel, with
the resultant pollution. This is
senseless, but the authorities will not
see beyond the archaic regulations.”
An example of the mindset
can be seen in that the original
abnormal permit is required to be
in the vehicle transporting a load.
Additional time and costs are then
required to get the original permit
to the vehicle, wherever it may
be, in spite of IT being available
to circumvent these outdated
requirements.
Despite this there are predicted
areas of growth in the project cargo
industry – especially in the petrochemical
and power generation
sectors.
“Everyone is looking to the
wind turbine power generation
projects in the near future, but no
announcements have been made
confirming these projects as yet,”
said Webb.