Durban harbour will have to dig deep – quite literally if one is considering its draught and berthing issues – if it wants to retain its superiority as Africa’s premier port, a World Bank study has found. Completed in March and titled “Port Development and Competition in East and Southern Africa (ESA)”, the report focused on “prospects and challenges” and found that harbours like Dar es Salaam and Djibouti were increasingly punching above their weight. According to Kudzanayi Bangure, project manager for Africa infrastructure at the Nepad Business Foundation (NBF), the study conclusively proves what has been feared for some time – Durban’s position as a leading exit and entry point for cargo into sub-Saharan Africa is being eroded by effective competency initiatives from competing ports. Having had sufficient time to go through the extensive report, Bangure highlighted several key points that, in his estimation, show up several red flags for Durban’s aspirations as a superior port. These, he said, included a decrease in growth of containers in Durban compared to other ports. The fastest growth in general cargo was noted in Djibouti compared to decreases in Durban, while Dar es Salaam outperformed Durban in terms of general cargo and containers. And although Durban is still a leading port for bulk cargo in the ESA region, Bangure added that the report had also found quay activity in Dar es Salaam to be ahead of Durban. “Overall it’s not looking good for Durban,” he said. Bangure’s assessment of the report’s findings is in keeping with the sentiments expressed by freight and infrastructure consultant Luigi Serafino of CNR Logistics. Speaking at the regular Transport Forum in July last year, Serafino said Dar es Salaam was on the ascendant as a port shaking off past tardiness by honing in on its biggest drawbacks. These, he said, included focusing on congestion as well as corruption, mainly at the behest of its industry-minded president, John Magufuli. And although deep-rooted problems regarding the extraction and exportation of copper out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have affected Dar’s dreams of overtaking Durban as an eastern seaboard port, it has worked hard to sustain its momentum as a harbour rolling out change. One of these strategies, Serafino pointed out, was to drop supply chain embargoes with the DRC but institute VAT on ancillary services, an absent initiative in South Africa. Wind the clock on almost a year after Serafino’s speech, and Dar es Salaam appears to have charted a solid and steady course towards reform and resultant rewards. But challenges remained, said Bangure – challenges that might work in favour of the North South Corridor that links Durban with markets going north en route to the copper belt area of Zambia and the DRC. Talking about the standard gauge rail link Tanzania has been intending to take through to the DRC, he said “in theory it could be an alternative for getting copper out of the DRC via Dar es Salaam. But from what we’ve seen the cost of that project has gone through the roof.” The fact that the former written-off Port of Djibouti is doing so well, having gained substantial investment from China, and considering its strategic position in its infrastructural lender’s Belt and Road Initiative, begs the question why Beijing is not getting involved in Tanzania’s rail aspirations. “Not that simple,” said Bangure. “From a corridor point of view it ran into similar issues we noticed in relation to Lobito. “They needed to check and cross-check specifications – and from a skills point of view they probably ran into similar problems as Angola experienced. The fact that the rail link between Dar and the DRC isn’t there yet isn’t because China for example didn’t do a proper cost analysis. It’s an engineering issue.” As to Magufuli’s corruption clean-up efforts and related attempts to clear up administrative snags, these Bangure was reluctant to comment on. He did however add that congestion was still holding back Dar’s potential to grow even faster. Having visited Rwanda recently where Volkswagen SA is heavily invested with component part production, Bangure said it took the manufacturer up to a month sometimes to move vehicles through Dar to its plant in Kigali. “According to the engagements we’ve had with VW they are considering moving cargo into bonded facilities in an attempt to deal with hold-ups of an administrative nature. The way we look at it, it’s an indication that there are still issues around the Port of Dar es Salaam.” Nevertheless, if Durban doesn’t take the necessary steps to urgently address port congestion, freight volumes at ports further north along the eastern seaboard will most likely continue on their upward trend, at the expense of Africa’s busiest harbour. CAPTION: Overall it’s not looking good for Durban. – Kudzanayi Bangure
