South Africa : Durban Port Manager announces plans to fence off the Port of Durban
Port Manager at Port of Durban and Chairperson for the Decongestion Task Team, Ms Mpumi Dweba-Kwetana, announced plans to fence off Port of Durban, in a quest to ensure safety and securty in Southern Africa’s busiest port. This announcement was made at the bi-weekty Decongestion Task team meeting, composed of muti-disciplinary stakeholders working collaboratively to decongest the Port of Durban.
It has been previously noted that the Port of Durban comprises of precincts that are not fenced off and as such, there are projects kick started to deal with these gaps which ultimately lead to congestion in the port. The Chairperson appealed to all port users to ensure readness from a planning and systems pont of view when execution of the fencing projects commences.
In the same breath, the forum also noted with concern an increase in trucks staged inside of the port precincts. Ms Dweba-Kwetana called upon trucking associations to have internal discussions and conversations to develop interventions to deal with the challenges experienced in the port.
Suggestions by the committee members were also made recommending that the city of eThekwini works together with the Port users in identifying land parcels for staging outside of the port precincts. With this said, it was made clear that terminal operators need to have procedures in place to deal with trucks that are transgressing the law in partnership with law enforcement agents and the ports authority.
Milestones were also reported during the task team meeting which included progress that has been made by Bidvest Freight who have recently activated a truck staging area at the Keystone Industrial Park in Hammersdale. With this, trucks destined for Bidvest terminals will now first call at the truck processing area to get clearance and a permit board must be displayed on the truck windscreens. It was reported that no truck will be permitted to enter the terminal operator’s premises without a clearance slip and the permit board displayed on the windscreen. Trucks that bypass the Hammersdale truck processing area shall be sent back to HammersdaIe to obtain the neœssary clearance. Bidvest Freight continues to look for a permanent solution by acquiring a land of its own.
Plans on the Deproclamation of Maydon Road are going ahead full steam. This project seeks to transfer Maydon Wharf Road, which is a public road, to the Port of Durban in an effort of controlling trafic moving in and out of the said precinct.
The rail stream of the Task team has reported continued challenges in the weekly supply of wagons to the Port of Durban. These challenges are largely attributed to the ongoing cable theft issues experienced and reported by the Rail operator. Members of the public are requested to blow the whistle on cable theft and report cable incidents to the Freight Rail Hotline number at 0800 003 056 or email : Transnet@tip-off.com.
The Port of Durban Decongestion Task Team continues to work with key stakeholders to focus on creating future rail and port capacity, as well as ancillary trucking operational facilities in order to grow market Share, improve road traffic compliance and prevent trafic congestion and intersection gridlocks around the port.
Press release : Transnet
