The twice-weekly public-private stakeholder sessions that were initiated after significant pressure was applied to Transnet to be more forthcoming about efforts to address backlogs at the Port of Cape Town are paying dividends.
Speaking to Freight News after yesterday’s session, Terry Gale, chairman of the Exporters’ Club Western Cape, said the meetings were making a “massive” difference.
“There is lots of information coming through, and from an export point of view it’s looking very good, particularly for trade to America.
“The stacks are firm and we can plan ahead with one or two vessels in advance, which wasn’t the case until recently.”
Also playing in the port’s favour is the weather as the Cape of Storms has become much becalmed after last week’s cold front – a situation that weather predictors say should last for some time (fingers crossed).
Admittedly, the frontal system that sent swell surges into the port of 12 metres and more, forcing container vessels like the MSC Sasha to cut and run, has slowed down some of the strides made in clearing the backlog, primarily created by Covid-related staff shortfalls.
Whereas initial plans were to claw back throughput delays to an even keel at the end of July, the middle of August now seems like a much more realistic prospect for restoring past capacity at the port.
And whereas the initial sessions – held every Tuesday and Thursday morning – were met with a modicum of scepticism by the freight industry, with several lines deciding to cut Cape Town out of direct calls at the height of Covid’s impact on the port, more stakeholders are now participating in the sessions.
“Yesterday about 50 people attended the meeting - ranging from senior port officials to captains of industry. If a crane is not working they come and ask what’s happening about it and usually by the next round we have answers.”
Gale, who also heads up a freight forwarding concern called Gale Lotheringen Freight Consultants (GLFC), said improvements at the port were doing so well it was opening up new markets.
“We are getting lots of enquiries and are looking at expanding our market in the US by up to 25%.”
Altogether it makes for an entirely different picture compared to a few weeks ago when ships were queued at anchorage, no one knew what was happening because not enough official information was going around, and sceptics were murmuring that issues that had not been addressed at the port had something to do with the Western Cape being DA-led
