The Western Cape (WC) government has confirmed that a task team will be established to combat congestion at the Port of Cape Town, primarily at the container terminal.
The establishment of the task team follows a meeting between the Department of Economic Development and Tourism and various stakeholders at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 5 December. Among those attending were Sars, Navis, Transnet, officials from the City of Cape Town, and the wider logistics industry.
Speaking at the meeting, David Maynier, Western Cape Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, said the task team would include members of the entire supply chain industry, with their first call to duty set for two weeks’ time.
Once the first meeting is out of the way, initial remedial action is expected to be implemented within three months.
Over and above the congestion, the port has had to deal with many issues, including institutional matters and port capacity, which have affected costs, efficiencies and economic growth at the port.
However, according to Maynier, the team will focus on ten priorities to help alleviate the issues at the port, with shortages of cranes topping the agenda.
“For example, where the global standard is three to five cranes per ship to load containers, the average number of cranes per ship at the Port of Cape Town is 2.5 for the year to date,” said Maynier.
He explained that it resulted in delays of around three days per vessel. Considering that about 510 ships have called at the Port of Cape Town over the past year, the impact is around 1 530 ship days lost due to congestion.
The stakeholder group will be reconvened in 2020 to provide feedback on the progress of the task team’s efforts to combat the congestion. - Bjorn Vorster
