Cape Town - After concerns raised by the Western Cape government over the slow recovery of the port of Cape Town ahead of what is expected to be a busy citrus export season towards the end of May, Transnet Port Terminals said its Cape Town Container Terminal was tracking well against the recovery plan.
Premier Alan Winde and Finance and Economic Opportunities MEC Mireille Wenger said in a joint statement the port failed to meet its own recovery targets.
They said extensive efforts had been made by industry and the provincial government to work with Transnet Port Terminals to ensure a credible and reliable recovery plan was in place to stabilise operations in the short term.
“Now, South African citrus exports are set to increase rapidly towards the end of May, with an anticipated increase of 16.6 million 15kg cartons of fruit needing to be moved through various ports including the port of Cape Town,” they said.
“Transnet’s Cape Town Container Terminal has failed to meet its own recovery targets and ship working hours. The terminal’s headline productivity measure which assesses the average container moves on a vessel per hour sit at an average of 25 hours compared to the 30 hour target.
“There are significant concerns mounting about the ability of the port of Cape Town to be able to efficiently process and ship the goods.”
According to the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism, exports were mainly to the EU.
Last year, 160 million cartons of citrus were exported from South Africa, of which 35 million were shipped through Cape Town. This year, a yearon-year increase of 16.6 million 15kg cartons of citrus was expected.
Winde said the Western Cape government had repeatedly raised concerns with the national government about the inefficiencies in the operations at the port of Cape Town.
“I am deeply frustrated that despite commitments from the Minister of Public Enterprises, Transnet and leadership at the port since early last year, once again another critical harvest season is in jeopardy.”
Wenger said the targets set in the Transnet and container terminal recovery plan for the port of Cape Town, designed to be conservative and achievable, were not even being achieved.
Wenger added that citrus yields were up, but indicators showed that performance at the port would not be able to handle the increased volumes this year.
Transnet Port Terminals Regional Corporate Affairs and Stakeholder Manager Andiswa Mesatywa said during April the Cape Town Cruise Terminal lost a total of 262 hours due to strong winds and 44 hours as a result of fog.
This amounted to a total of 13 days of no productivity.
“Despite these setbacks, the terminal’s volume throughout to address the demand for citrus volumes during the last three months totalled 48 200 reefer containers, exceeding the planned volume of 39400.
“We are in constant with our key stakeholders progress and address bottlenecks.”