Transnet in the dock over costly broken gate bungle
A BROKEN gate at the heart of South Africa’s biggest port has cost the economy an estimated R500-million — and it still isn’t fixed 18 months after shipping companies first raised the alarm.
The state-owned Transnet last week confirmed damage to the “outer caisson” at Durban harbour’s Prince Edward Graving dry dock, which as a result has had only one functioning gate since July 2013.
The faulty facility, which used to have two dock compartments that could be emptied and filled as required, now has only one compartment, resulting in a massive bottleneck and ships being turned away.
“Transnet National Ports Au- thority [Port of Durban] is aware that not being able to operate optimally will have an impact on business,” said Transnet spokeswoman Lesley van Duffelen in a written response to queries.
“The first and second phases of a comprehensive repair programme have been completed, and the third (final) phase, which is the repair of the steel within the caisson, will be put out to open public tender in the near future, in line with Transnet procurement procedures,” Van Duffelen said.
The reduced capacity meant the dock was out of bounds for more than three months until the first week of December, due to the refit of one of the armsdeal frigates — a “national priority” that took precedence over other ship repairs.
The fiasco is the latest in a series of blunders at Durban harbour, which handles about 4 000 ships a year (30% of the national total) and 2.6 million containers (56% of the national total).
This comes just a few months after President Jacob Zuma announced a government programme, Operation Phakisa, aimed at bolstering jobs in the maritime sector.
Instead of creating jobs, Transnet’s handling of the dry dock has led to job shedding.
Although the three main ship repair companies active in the port declined to give official comment, several senior industry executives provided a litany of woes.
These included:
A major repair job was lost to the port when the Pacific Quartz was turned away after suffering hull damage on entering the port. The ship was redirected to Dubai;
The accident has raised concern about the depth of the port. At least two other ships reportedly “touched bottom” in December, allegedly due to problems with dredgers;
The port’s two main cranes are broken and in need of repair, despite some of the highest port tariffs in the world; and
A floating dock bought from Russia for R100-million eight years ago is still not operational.
Business Times is in possession of correspondence in 2013 between Transnet and the SA Association of Shipbuilders and Repairers, which urged the parastatal to do repairs as soon as possible in the interests of the economy.
At the time, Transnet was planning to shut the facility for at least two months, but opted instead to replace the broken outer gate with a functioning inner gate, reducing the dry dock’s capacity but allowing business to continue.
The association claimed a two-month closure would result in a R60-million loss.
The “temporary” measure is still in place due to major delays in repairing the outer gate, resulting in a much bigger loss.
This week, the South African Maritime Safety Association confirmed they too had urged Transnet to speed up repairs: “The refurbishment of the outer caisson was supposed to commence on August 1 2013 and be completed by the end of 2013. There [now] seems to be no set date for the completion of repairs,” said Samsa’s principal officer in Durban, Mladen Brkovic.
“It is clear that the condition of the dry dock affects all parties involved, especially the shipbuilding and repair industry,” Brkovic said.
One senior executive de- scribed the situation as hugely frustrating. “The loss of income to Transnet must be well over R50-million but to the industry it is over R500-million. It has been a problem for many years. Transnet was trying to privatise the dock and was going to let the new operators do the repairs.”
Another executive said the gate, which would cost only about R4-million to fix, had caused a reduction of about 75 % in ship dockings.
The parastatal’s handling of the dry dock has led to job shedding