Cape Town - Ports authority Transnet said they are ready for the upcoming fruit export season as backlogs at the Transnet Port Terminals and Cape Town terminals have been cleared following an end to the industrial strike action.
The industrial action ended on October 17 after nearly two weeks due to a deadlock in wage negotiations with the Untu and Satawu unions. A three-year wage agreement was signed.
Transnet spokesperson Ayanda Shezi said with 100% of the workforce back on duty, the terminals have berthed the last two vessels that were at anchorage and will now focus on new vessels calling at the Cape Town Container Terminal.
“As part of the recovery plan, ahead of the deciduous fruit season which starts in mid-November, the Cape Town Container Terminal will utilise a three-berth operation, operating at full capacity, to ensure vessels are turned around timeously.
“In preparation for the upcoming season, an additional ship-to-shore crane was delivered and successfully handed over to operations. This will equip the terminal with maximum crane deployment to improve ship working hours, which will boost productivity and enhance service provisioning to customers.
“Transnet is encouraged by the swift manner in which backlogs were cleared and is set to continue in this positive vein to ensure the deciduous fruit season is successfully executed,” said Shezi.
Sharing cargo movement updates, Business Unity SA (Busa) said the industrial strike action had a cumulative impact and rung up a logistics cost of R7 billion, as goods worth R65.3bn stood idle with a “significant portion likely never to be recovered”.
“The strike action across our commercial ports caused extensive economic damage. And unfortunately, some of the cost of failure to move goods will never be recovered.
“We must do everything in our power to prevent a recurrence of this catastrophe, which would surely lead to an acceleration of the spiralling economic decay of the last decade or more.
“We must ensure that as we evolve and mature as a nation, we work together to achieve our goals in a social compact comprising business, labour and government. And from the perspective of logistics, the social compact means trade must occur on shared infrastructure via shared responsibilities from all parties,” Busa said.
Cape Times