Speaking during a parliamentary media briefing yesterday, Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe reported that “concession architecture” for the Durban Container Terminal (DCT) in Kwazulu-Natal is in its final stage of development and will be discussed by Cabinet soon.

Late last year, Radebe’s department confirmed that it was moving to accelerate the restructuring of South Africa’s troubled ports, despite serious objections from organised labour.

In October, it appointed a group of international consultants, CPCS Transcom, to advise it on the implementation phase of ports restructuring.

During the first half of this year, these advisors are meant to develop four separate reports, culminating in an economic impact assessment of the macro and micro benefits of involving the private sector in the operation of South Africa’s harbours.

The first target is DCT, which, last year, was hit by serious congestion and strike action.

DCT is South Africa’s largest container terminal, but the State views it as a serious weakness in the logistics chain and believes concessioning to be the only alternative.

However, the labour movement has already expressed strong reservations about possible concessioning and has slammed government for acting outside the bounds of the National Framework Agreement (NFA), which stipulates that government should engage with all stakeholders when pursuing restructuring. Radebe yesterday admitted that the concessioning planning process had been “complex and consultative”, adding that it considered a wide range of jealously guarded interests.

“Most of these have been incorporated, but others have been adjusted to achieve more common goals.” He added that the choice of ports concession over other modes of restructuring was not an idea “plucked out of nowhere”.

“It is a logical consequence of the White Paper on National Commercial Ports Policy that adopts the landlord port authority model for SA.

“This is an appropriate instrument for safeguarding public ownership, introducing private initiative and investment as well as providing a vehicle for achieving wider ownership in ports sector, and carries the of much improved operating performance,” Radebe concluded.