No job cuts in port takeover – unions

South Africa’s powerful labour unions could scupper the nation’s plans to sell a stake in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest container port and have it operated by Filipino billionaire Enrique Razon’s International Container Terminal Services. (ICTSI).

The United National Transport Union (Untu) and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) are demanding that the ICTSI agrees to no job cuts for the duration of the 25-year contract, their general secretaries said.

They submitted this and other demands to the ICTSI and Transnet before December but say they have yet to get a response.

Transnet says it has engaged with them.

“We doubt they will agree to our conditions,” said Jack Mazibuko, general secretary of Satawu. He added that the union planned to write to the parties again to demand an answer.

Should the transaction – announced in July – be scrapped, it would mean that SA’s first attempt to sell an equity stake in one of its struggling ports has failed.

The near-collapse of rail and port services offered by Transnet is limiting SA’s exports, reducing its tax revenue and causing growth to stagnate.

It would also be another setback for Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, who has been pushing for more private-sector involvement in a bid to boost the performance of moribund state firms.

Ellis Mnyandu, spokesperson for the department of public enterprises, said: “The ultimate outcome of this process must enhance the productivity and efficiency of the port terminals.”

Mnyandu added that while the minister had met the leaders of both unions, the department did not get involved in procurement processes. Under the agreement, the ICTSI will pay an undisclosed amount for just under half of Durban Container Terminal Pier 2.

It will run and expand the facility, which accounts for three-quarters of the volumes that passes through the port and 46% of the nation’s total port traffic.

The plan would be to expand its annual throughput to 2.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units from the current two million.

Steven Leshabana, the president of Untu, confirmed the demand.

The ICTSI has declined to comment on the matter.