Appointment of Transnet Port Terminal Chief Executive welcomed

We welcome the appointment of Velile Dube as Chief Executive of Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) from 1 July. Velile Dube’s experience of the Cape Town environment will be valuable as we work together to address the significant operational challenges facing the Port of Cape Town.

We also note the short-term interventions to be implemented by TPT to increase staffing at the Port of Cape Town following our call for urgent intervention. However, a lot more still needs to be done to address the infrastructure constraints and systemic issues that prevent the Port of Cape Town from meeting the import/export demand and offering a competitive, world-class service. For example, the staffing measure will increase the number of teams or “gangs” operating at the container terminal from four to six, however, full capacity should ideally have nine teams with modern equipment in operation on three berths in the container terminal. The multi-purpose terminal also requires upgrading.

As such, we look forward to a response from Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, with regards to our request for a meeting with himself and the Transnet management team to discuss interventions to address the challenges in the Port of Cape Town.