The skills shortage has hit crisis levels in South Africa's maritime industry, MPs heard on Wednesday.
"There is a chronic, chronic shortage of skills," SA Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) CEO Tsietsi Mokhele told parliament's transport portfolio committee.
Briefing members on challenges facing the local maritime industry, he said many highly-skilled marine personnel had reached, or were about to reach, retirement age, resulting in an increasing dependence on expensive expatriate labour.
"Every entity I know of in the maritime industry is battling with attracting the right maritime skills. As a result, we are spending two-to-three times more than what we should be paying."
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Mokhele said implementation of transformation initiatives in the maritime sector had been "hugely lacking" compared to other industries.
"As a result, there hasn't been an infusion of skills into the industry," he said.
A well-placed source in the maritime industry, who declined to be named, told Sapa the skills shortage was a huge problem.
"But it's not exactly breaking news... the problem has been looming for the past 15 years, and everyone in the sector has seen this coming and done next to nothing about it.
"The local shipping industry has put little into training; government has done little to promote maritime training; and, now, there are no replacements for those skilled people who are retiring.
"Affirmative action has also had a negative impact on South Africa's harbours, with unsuitable candidates selected for many of the training courses, resulting in a huge drop-out rate," the source said.
Mokhele told the committee that government had given "inadequate attention" to the country's maritime industry.
There was a lack of policy on the maritime transport sector, and a lack of support and incentive programmes for key maritime industries and initiatives.
"From a competitive point of view, if one looks at shipbuilding and repair, South Africa has a huge advantage. The country has a huge industrial base in terms of steel... and [labour]... but there aren't targeted incentive programmes to drive [this]," he said.
Mokhele also told MPs that South Africa's Shipping Register -- the official list of merchant vessels flying the national flag -- was outdated and uncompetitive.
"Today, I come here to report there is only one ship left on the register, and that one, I am told, could be de-commissioned at any time now. This is compared to 60 vessels in 1990."
He also warned of a lack of technological capacity to monitor foreign vessels in South African waters.
"Our capacity to track and monitor vessels at sea is non-existent," Mokhele said.
This had become clear during the recent incident involving the Chinese vessel carrying arms for Zimbabwe. The authorities were unable to say where the ship was headed, or pinpoint its position after it left Durban harbour.
Further, South Africa was lagging when it came to installing a Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system, which it was required to do, in terms of international agreement, by January 1 next year.
LRIT is a satellite-based security system used for tracking the movement of large ships around the globe. In terms of agreement, South Africa is obliged to implement the system to monitor shipping passing within 1000 nautical miles (about 1500km) of its coastline.
"Unfortunately, as a country, I don't think we've done the basic work...We don't have the technology."
Initial estimates were that installing the up to 150 base stations required would cost about R75 million.
Mokhele said Samsa was preparing a plan to tackle this matter, which would be ready in August for presenting to government. - Sapa
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