Shippers welcome chopped port tariff

In a move that will delight
importers and exporters,
Transnet National Ports
Authority (TNPA) is set to
chop about one billion rand
off its port charges in the
financial year 2012/13.
According to President
Jacob Zuma in his state
of the nation address,
the government has been
looking at the necessity of
reducing port charges, as
part of reducing the costs of
doing business.
“The issue of high port
charges,” he added, “was one
of those raised sharply by
the automotive sector in Port
Elizabeth and Uitenhage
during my performance
monitoring visit to the sector
last year.”
Given this, Zuma
announced that the SA Ports
Regulator and Transnet had
agreed to an arrangement
that would result in
exporters of manufactured
goods receiving a significant
decrease in port charges
during the coming year,
equal to about one billion
rand in total.
This, confirmed Riad
Khan, CEO of the Ports
Regulator (PR), would be a
discount off the base rates.
And, he added, the
billion rand discount will
obviously affect the tariff
determination by the PR –
where TNPA is currently
looking for an 18.06%
increase, but which Khan
has already told FTW will be
adjusted downwards.
What will happen now,
he added, is that TNPA
will have a regulator-fixed
increase in its port tariffs,
and then the discount will
also be applied.
Due to be announced this
week, the final figures, Khan
has assured FTW, “will meet
with the approval” of the
freight industry.