Transnet terminals ‘not as efficient yet’
CEO claims strides have been made
ALTHOUGH Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) is not where it needs to be in terms of efficiency, it is making a lot of progress by reducing its vessel change turnaround time to under two hours, according to Nozipho Sithole, chief executive at TPT.
Sithole was speaking at Transnet’s Business Stakeholder Engagement, at Cape Town International Convention Centre yesterday.
This was a follow-up session to one that took place in May, for stakeholders to engage on business and maritime logistics, key industry developments, challenges faced, possible solutions and also explore ways to improve and grow business and the economy of the country.
Sithole said she was fulfilling her promise made to stakeholders at the last session in May to give feedback on the progress made over the past 60 days.
She said TPT promised to improve the performance of the port of Cape Town, which was at present achieving less than the desired performance levels.
“From where I’m standing, we are nowhere close to where we need to be, there is a lot of work that we still need to do.
“I am convinced as I stand here, that yes, the team is making progress and the team will continue to make progress.
“The discipline in our operations is what will make us really appear to be customer centric. We have seen that our vessel changeover has moved from four hours to 1.7 hours, but we are going to move it down further to 1.5 hours because we can,” said Sithole.
She said TPT should aim for meeting targets of getting the port to be one of the top five ports in the world.
She said one of the current constraints to this goal was that TPT did not have as much land as it would like to have in order to stack containers in all the places they might require.
Referring to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, she said as part of that report, it became clear that TPT would be occupying the top spot in terms of performance among the African ports.
“We, therefore, need to continue to be the gateway into Africa, our efficiencies must improve. Our efficiencies are going to come on the back of technologies going forward. We are open for business, in terms of partnerships in as far as technology is concerned,” said Sithole.