An unfolding logistics crisis at the Port of Cape Town is set to curtail exports, particularly fresh produce, before the festive season. The province is calling for private players to be brought in to remedy the problem.
Business Day has seen presentations made at the logistics cluster workshop in October, which paint a picture of a port nearing a point of dysfunction.
Fruit SA in its presentation flags logistics as the “single largest risk factor facing agricultural exports”. Data from the lobby group shows that delays in getting goods out of the country has seen claims of bad-quality produce double from 2015 to 2022, when they reached 37% of goods sent offshore.
Fruit SA is an umbrella body for fresh fruit associations, including Berries ZA, Subtrop, the Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa, Fresh Produce Exporters’ Forum, Hortgro and SA Table Grape Industry.
Most of the markers for the Port of Cape Town are down. It has a target to receive 20,000 containers a week, but achieved this peak target only once in 2022. It received as few as 7,316 containers in one week.
The average turnaround time of four days is also difficult to achieve. It hit this milestone only twice in 2022, with its worst performance being 17 days.
In the week from October 9 to 15, a combination of adverse weather and increasing equipment breakdown caused vessel turnaround time to increase.
“Maintenance crews are underresourced for the number of breakdowns,” reads a report given to the provincial government. One of the challenges is a lack of rubber tyred gantries (RTGs) and their engines.
RTGs are machines designed to load and unload containers.
According to the equipment improvement plan dated October 11, four RTGs that had engine failures were refitted in October, with three more scheduled to be fixed in November. The plan also shows seven used RTGs were bought from the US, with delivery set for the end of this month.
MEC for finance & economic opportunities Mireille Wenger said the Western Cape’s target of tripling exports by 2035 is being hamstrung by the challenges.
“We are heading into an export crisis in the Western Cape at the end of the year. With the good rains ... our agricultural goods for export are anticipated to increase by 25%. This is a wonderful opportunity to increase exports and to bring in more revenue,” Wenger said.
Deterioration
“In direct contrast, we have seen significant deterioration at the Port of Cape Town, particularly when it comes to critical equipment, such as RTGs.
“These are needed to load containers on and off trucks but they are repeatedly breaking down. This means that as it stands, the Port of Cape Town is not and will not be able to keep up with the volume of goods coming in and get them to market in time ... it is high time that the private sector is brought in to boost the efficiency of the Port of Cape Town so we can work together to achieve the kind of breakout economic growth we need to create thousands of new jobs in the province and in SA.”
In the World Bank’s container port performance index 2022, Cape Town ranked 344 out of the 348 ports surveyed and was in the top 20 that most increased average arrival times.
A port benchmarking report by the Ports Regulator of SA says ships spent the most time waiting at anchorage to enter the Port of Cape Town than all of the SA terminals.
The Port of Cape Town’s “anchorage performance was affected by inclement weather and IPMS [the Integrated Port Management System] downtime, which created a challenge for pilotage and service time.
“Most vessels experienced surge during operations, hence long hours at berth and anchorage,” reads the report.
“Most reasons given for the poor performance by the authority and TPT (Transnet Port Terminals) are centred on inclement weather conditions (surge) and poor equipment availability and reliability.
“While it is encouraging to learn that the authority is looking into installing a mooring system to address the surge at the often affected ports ... TPT’s solutions for the continued poor performance is lacking.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.