Now it’s a war room to fix Cape Town’s ‘worst in the world’ port

The key players in shipping through Cape Town harbour are to set up a war room to integrate all functions and try to boost efficiency at the port, which was recently ranked as the worst performer among 400 globally.

Transport minister Barbara Creecy told Business Times that stakeholders agreed on the step this week. It will bring ship owners, agents and Transnet together to co-ordinate more closely on their separate responsibilities — the arrival at the port of trucks or trains, or the gate; the rows of containers awaiting shipment, or the stack; and the ships themselves.

“Those three things have got to align with each other, and these three things are under the control of different people, because Transnet is responsible for the stack, the agent is responsible for the gate — because they’ve got to get the farmers and the trucks and whatever — and the vessel is the responsibility of the shipping owner.”

The World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence named Cape Town the worst-performing port in the world on a container port performance index of 400 harbours earlier this year.

Cape Town handles about 80% of the country’s deciduous fruit exports, including citrus, table grapes, apples, pears and stone fruit, which need to reach the northern hemisphere soon after being harvested to catch the December festive season shoppers.

Creecy said the port faced challenges with high levels of wind. Other issues included labour availability, breakdown of equipment and moving produce to the back-of-port facility.

“We’re coming from a situation in 2023 or 2024 where it was… the all-time low, where the fruit was rotting on the dock and the ships were queued and there was just chaos. [There was] a bit of improvement in 2024. Now, last year, we had thought we were going to have a good season because we had bought new equipment.”

She said the war room would try to improve integration and accountability in the system as well as ensure “agility of decision-making”. Transnet also intended to upgrade its logistics software.

The question we’ve got to ask is how to improve integration and accountability while you’re still building the [IT] system.

—  Transport minister Barbara Creecy

“In developed countries, they have the support community system. It’s an AI-enhanced IT system that manages not just the port, but the whole ecosystem around the port. We don’t yet have that. That is where Transnet would want to go in the medium term. But the question we’ve got to ask is how to improve integration and accountability while you’re still building the system.”

She said by the end of the financial year, the government will have spent R2.8bn on new equipment, a number that is projected to rise to R4.9bn by 2030.

Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) COO Solly Letsoalo said the entity was using out-of-date equipment such as rubber-tyre gantries (RTGs) that were prone to breakdown and needed to be replaced, first with better second-hand equipment and later with new equipment.

“We had a situation where we had old equipment that’s not well maintained, especially when we started with RTGs that caused quite a lot of problems in the past, and then we brought in some second-hand RTGs; they call them ‘blue’ RTGs. They were also breaking down.”

He said the port’s ship-to-shore container cranes were also unreliable. New cranes were on order, with the first of them due to arrive by December. “We ordered 14 of these things… We will have all of them up there and ready to work during the peak season.”

Letsoalo said he would meet with cargo agents this week and later with representatives of the shipping lines. By the end of this week, all three parties will be ready to meet, and the first war room session will take place by the end of September.

Boitshoko Ntshabele, CEO of the Citrus Growers Association, welcomed the establishment of the war room.

“This is a meaningful decision and one that we, with a degree of optimism, believe will be impactful in the interim. The port is an essential part of the citrus value chain — a chain that supports tens of thousands of livelihoods on farm level alone in the Western Cape.”

Saul Levin, executive director of Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (Tips), told Business Times a lot could be done to improve the performance of South African ports. “We have already seen a massive jump in the rankings at the port of Durban due to interventions there. There is no doubt more can be done to improve the efficiency in Durban.”

Cape Town needed to up its game to unlock key exports from the Western Cape, particularly from the agriculture and agro-processing sector.

“War rooms have been successful in the past in prioritising the interventions required and changes that are needed for improvements, and this intervention should be welcomed. In addressing the challenges at South African ports, including Cape Town, there are quick fixes, structural changes as well as infrastructure required,” Levin said.

Business Times