Finance and Economic Opportunities
With regard to the Port Stakeholder Forum held on 20 January 2023:
- (a) Which stakeholders were present, (b) what successes have been achieved to address the identified inefficiencies to date and (c) what are the objectives of the forum going forward;
- regarding Transnet’s infrastructure plan report on the Port of Cape Town, whether any port infrastructure development plans were discussed; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details;
- what steps have been implemented to date to (a) corporatise and (b) privatise components of the Port of Cape Town?
1 (a) Stakeholders at the Port of Cape Town Dialogue included public sector representatives from all spheres of government, relevant operating divisions of Transnet, exporter and importer representatives, shipping line representatives, freight forwarders and cold store managers. The list of stakeholders represented is attached (see Annexure A).
1 (b) The establishment of a platform for collaboration, with a common vision for economic growth and job creation shared by all primary agencies in the port container logistics chain, specifically aimed at using the full potential of the Port of Cape Town for this purpose has been a notable achievement. Other successes to address identified inefficiencies include:
- Applied research to understand the root causes of problems in a complex logistics environment;
- Interventions to improve two-way communications between agencies,
- The first steps to augment heavy lifting equipment in the container terminal, including an additional ship to shore crane for the main container terminal and a third mobile harbour crane for the multi-purpose terminal, have begun; and
- The first version of a port logistics performance dashboard has been released recently with the aim of improving efficiency by providing a line of sight of cargo from origin to destination.
1 (c) The objective of this forum is for the Western Cape Government to facilitate an annual event for all primary stakeholders in the Port of Cape Town logistics chain to engage face-to-face and discuss progress regarding agreed-upon priority interventions, and to consider new priorities. All presentations for the fourth annual port stakeholder dialogue can be found on the following website https://www.westerncape.gov.za/site-page/economic-sector-support-research-and-events-4th-annual-port-cape-town-stakeholder-engagement#overlay-context=user.
2. DEDAT is not in a position to answer on behalf of Transnet, or the National Department of Public Enterprise. These questions are best answered by the relevant authorities.
3 (a) and (b) DEDAT is not in a position to answer on behalf of Transnet, or the National Department of Public Enterprise. These questions are best answered by the relevant authorities.
