EASTERN CAPE INDUSTRIAL & BUSINESS NEWS
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issn NO: 1996-9708
Call to rescue East London port
september / October 2017
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T
HE Port of East London should be taken over and run by the municipality in partnership with the private sector to rescue it from decades of government neglect, the local business chamber has said. Les Holbrook, Executive Director of the Border-Kei Chamber of Business, made the call in a hardhitting column in this issue of Eastern Cape Industrial & Business News. It focuses on what he describes as the “sorry state of our once grand asset”. “Over the years we here in East London have tried to understand the development agenda and long-term strategy for our beautiful port,” he said, adding that state neglect of the harbour wasn’t a new phenomenon and dated back to 1954 when the then South African Railways and Harbours (SAR&H) withdrew the only gantry crane in East London to “give” it to South West Africa, now Namibia. “Since then the port has put up with loading and offloading goods and containers via mechanical cranes fitted to relatively small craft. It’s a practice that prevails till today, 63 years later.” The East London Terminal, now managed by the state-owned Transnet Port Terminals (TPT), consists of a Ro-Ro terminal, the largest
grain silo on the South African coastline, break-bulk and containerised cargo facilities. Holbrook said the last development of any note was Phase I of the car terminal in 2002, with subsequent spending either falling short or woefully misdirected. He gave the example of the purchase of a mobile crane to manage purpose-built containers during the loading and offloading of coal. “We
were told to be grateful for a commodity not wanted and for a crane that has not done much work for its original intention. To this day, however, despite seven new gantry cranes destined for Port Elizabeth and Ncura, there’s still no gantry crane for East London.” He said East London’s once profitable and sought-after ship repairs industry – with a fully functioning dry dock that could accommodate all
issue no. 81
but the very big vessels – had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Although efforts were underway to revive the industry, “it’s too little too late and all but one repair company remains to service our entire coastline between Cape Town and Durban”. “The sorry list goes on and on, blaming the Heritage Council for not returning the Latimers Landing to its former glory of fine establishments and tourist attractions. Closing of Buffalo Bridge for 18 months longer than necessary, causing incalculable losses to commuters and the City, is another example. “There is only one conclusion. The State does not care.” Holbrook said the solution was to hand ownership of the port to the Buffalo City Metro Municipality, adding that most ports in Europe and the rest of the world were owned, managed and operated by the private sector, in collaboration with the local authority. “At our Maritime Summit in October 2016, the City of Gothenburg was presented as a successful case study. Imagine this sign greeting visitors to our Port: ‘Welcome to the port of East London, owned managed and operated by the City’.”
continued on page two
R32m dairy farm boost for agriculture, land reform
L
AND reform and agricultural production in the Eastern Cape have both received a boost with the official opening of new R32million dairy farm in Tsitsikamma. According to Eastern Cape MEC for Rural Development and Agrarian Reform, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, whose department provided the funding for the project, the new dairy boasts the latest machinery for milking about 66 cows at a time, yielding 16 000 liters of milk daily. The milk is sold to
Parmalat. Qoboshiyane, who presided at the opening, said it marked a development milestone for former victims of the Group Areas Act in the area. At the height of apartheid, about 152 amaMfengu families from Tsitsikama were forcefully removed from their land, which includes the 650ha Wittekleibosch farm and surrounding farms. When the land was handed over to the families in 1994, they formed a
partnership with dairy farmer, Johan Du Plessis to continue dairy farming in the area, forming a commercial trading entity known as the Wittekleibosch Development Trust. In the commercial partnership, amaMfengu contributed their land, existing infrastructure, and dairy parlor machinery while Kleikamma Trust, owned by the Du Plessis family, contributed their technical skills and cattle. “Prior to the construction of the
new dairy by the department, the farm was using an old and dilapidated structure with capacity to milk 20 cows at a go, yielding about 10 000 litres of milk per day.” By contrast, the new Wittekleibosch dairy, which is one of the few actively producing land reform farms in the country, has an off-take agreement with Parmalat, directly benefiting the 152 families living at the farm and creating 24 permanent jobs. Enquiry No: 1
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