West Africa’s dire seafreight record sets FTW readers alight

FTW’s coverage of the
problems on the sea trades
into West Africa – serious port
mismanagement, insufficient
capital equipment, port
congestion, lengthy delays
for ships and containers, and
impossible-to-keep sailing
schedules among them –
clearly raised a lot of steam in
the SA seafreight industry.
And it’s certainly not on
the path to improvement,
according to readers’ e-mails
that have reached our mail
boxes since the issue was first
raised over six months ago.
FTW’s recent coverage of
this chaotic sea cargo market
has again seen the internet
wires running hot – with
readers telling of their own
tragic efforts to service what is
a fast growing market, utterly
dependent on seafreight for
almost all of its imports and its
few export cargoes.
One such story was from
Neil Robertson, owner of
Robertson Freight.
Speaking to FTW journalist
Tersia Booyzen, he said:
“Port congestion at most of
these (West African) ports
has resulted in various knockon
effects.
“The increase in port
congestion surcharges and
the disruption to regular liner
schedules have wreaked havoc
on forward planning for some
of our regular exporters.”
The shipping lines are
equally upset at the costs
of serving the West African
port system. It’s a trade that
Andrew Thomas, CEO of
locally-based shipping line,
Ocean Africa Container
Line (OACL), and chairman
of the SA Association of
Ship Operators and Agents
(Saasoa), described as
“prohibitively expensive” for a
line to service.
And his words in FTW
also raised a storm of e-mails
from readers, one of which
said that – along with the
likes of on-going congestion,
high container damage rates,
missing and slow-to-return
boxes, and lines having to bear
the cost of returning empties
– we should add “corruption”,
an everyday issue in the West
African sea trade.
Even his letter raised an
immediate response.
FTW reader “Allan”
agreed with the comments on
corruption, but had his own
complaints to add.
“I sympathise with lines on
the macro problems – delays,”
he said.
“Lagos Apapa is now a
21-day delay, and Luanda,
anything between 10 and 30
days. In addition, the time
taken for the lines’ containers
to turn-around is astonishing.
Sometimes a line can wait
three-to-four months to
get their empties back and
evacuated .
“I have yet to see a line
advertise a schedule at the
start of its West Africa trip
and not lose at least two/
three weeks in its anticipated
turnaround.”
Thomas confirmed this,
telling FTW that his line
reckons that it loses about
20-25% of its annual voyage
time on the Luanda run.
And it’s a problem that
FTW readers all say is
certainly not getting any
better – despite West African
governments’ public relations
promises of all sorts of
planned investment in port
development.