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FTW3605
FRIDAY 10 July 2009 NO. 1870
The Freight Community’s Weekly Newspaper for Import / Export decision makers – on subscription
Ngqura named SA’s ‘official’ hub port By Ed Richardson Ngqura is to be the sole hub port for South Africa – and that’s official, according to Solly Letsoalo, chief operating officer of Transnet Port Terminals (TPT). Speaking in Port Elizabeth at a Port Elizabeth Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Percci) breakfast last week, Letsoalo said this decision had been taken by the Transnet board after international research undertaken by Flynn Consulting had identified both the need for a hub port and Ngqura as the most suitable location in South Africa for such a harbour.
Ngqura is situated “smack in the middle of the biggest world markets, and also in the middle of the growing south-south trade,” he said. The port would not, however, only be a transit point and would serve other harbours in South, east and west Africa through feeder services. The hub status would also help make the neighbouring Coega Industrial Development Zone more competitive and attractive as an investment destination. Ngqura will grow to being the “biggest port in South Africa, and the most cost-efficient,” he said. It will also be the only hub – the
research had shown that “two hubs in a country are a disaster,” he said. “Now we have the challenge of setting up a hub,” he said. The master plan for the port and associated rail infrastructure serving the hinterland catered for 10 million TEU a year, he said. In phase 1, the port will have six Mega Panamax cranes catering for “ships that are not even docking in South Africa” at To page 12
Solly Letsoalo … ‘Ngqura will grow to being the biggest port in South Africa, and the most cost-efficient.’
Truckers fume over Pier 1 strike By Alan Peat With the container movements at Durban’s Pier 1 container terminal grinding to halt last weekend as workers downed tools, the container trucking industry has run out of patience. “We were just about to officially complain to the port authorities over the fact that
the Durban container terminal (DCT) had shut down three times in the past six weeks because of ‘industrial action’, when this latest Pier 1 strike and shut-down for a whole weekend added insult to injury,” said Kevin Martin, MD of Freightliner and vice-chairman of the Durban harbour carriers’ section of the SA Association of
Freight Forwarders (Saaff). This followed an urgent communiqué sent out by Pier 1 at 23:49 on the evening of Friday, July 3, telling truckers that Pier 1 was on strike, and would be shut down till 06:00 on Monday morning. “My own operation, for example, had 16 trucks booked for Saturday morning to collect
a client’s import boxes from Pier 1,” said Martin. “This lastminute notice meant we had to get hold of all our drivers, some as late as three to four in the morning, to tell them not to come – and the client didn’t get the import consignment he was urgently waiting for.” This has made the harbour carriers’ letter to the senior
management of Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) complaining about these frequent strikes even more urgent. More than half the problem is what Martin described as “a complete lack of foresight” by TPT management. “Where was their anticipation in this latest case,” he said. To page 12
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