Sapo meets critics over New Pier service ‘incompetence’

ALAN PEAT
IN THE battle brewing between Durban harbour users and the port authorities over the slowness of cargo movement at the New Pier container terminal, loud words have been expressed. But – with FTW holding the pipe of peace between the combatants – a truce has been called, and discussions are under way this week to try to resolve all the outstanding complaints. After receiving a number of calls over recent weeks from forwarders and cartage operators about the length of time it took them to get containers off the ship, or out of the terminal, the latest declaration of war was from Ricky Omar of international freight forwarders, Oriental Shipping. In an open letter to the directors of SA Port Operations (Sapo), and copied to FTW and the Durban Chamber of Commerce, Omar effectively said “fix it or forget it” as a container facility at Durban harbour. He accused the staff of the New Pier terminal of giving poor service to cartage operators and drivers having to wait up to four hours to load up a container. “We request that the directors should get more involved with the physical operations at the harbour,” Omar said, “due to staff being incompetent and displaying a don’t care attitude towards their duties. “We also request that staff at new pier should take their responsibilities more seriously – stop taking more time than the normal legal breaks, and overcome the fact that shift changes are causing delays of at least an hour. “We will not be tolerating any more delays at New Pier 105/107, and all future delays that are the fault of staff there will be charged directly to Sapo.” When approached for comment, Louis du Toit, terminal manager at New Pier, was quick to admit that his terminal had had problems keeping up to speed in recent times, and he accepted that delays had upset some of his clients. “But,” he told FTW, “the problem was severe congestion at New Pier about 10 days ago, when we were having to run at 104% stack capacity. “This created a nightmare.” However, he added, the problems had been resolved, stack levels were now back at a controllable level, and there was no queue of vehicles outside the terminal when we spoke. And he called on Omar, through FTW, he submit more detail of his complaints “so that we can come up with the answer”. Du Toit also confirmed to FTW that he had called for a meeting with concerned cartage customers this week, and that he was open for discussion about all the problems with which the road carriers felt they were faced.