As part of a countrywide shake-up, Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) has redeployed Thami Ntshingila, left, as port manager of Durban; replacing Ricky Bhikraj, who has been promoted.
Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) last week announced the appointment of three new port managers in a countrywide shake-up.
This was after changes at the ports of Saldanha and Mossel Bay where the two respective port managers swopped ports.
Last week it was the ports of Richards Bay, Durban and Cape Town’s turn to undergo change.
TNPA chief executive Tau Morwe said the appointments were in keeping with TNPA’s organisational transformation which is geared to align human resources competencies to ensure delivery on Transnet’s Market Demand Strategy (MDS).
While not stated, it is clear the reorganisation is also geared to address certain demographic inequalities in terms of senior managers at the port company.
Earlier Morwe said there was a need to rectify the demographics involving the position of port managers, pointing out that among the eight ports there was only one black African holding the position of port manager. From this week there are four, with a fifth to come at Ngqura.
Preston Khomo has been promoted to port manager of Richards Bay
The new appointments are:
* Thami Ntshingila, previously port manager at Richards Bay, is re-deployed as port manager Durban.
* Preston Khomo, previously in charge of ship repair/dry docks at Durban, is promoted to port manager Richards Bay.
* Sipho Nzuza is the new port manager at Cape Town. Nzuza was until recently the market manager at the Port of Durban where he acted as port manager on several occasions.
An announcement concerning the appointment of a port manager at the Port of Ngqura is also expected soon. Although this has not been announced, it is believed the new port manager, who will be Ngqura’s first permanent appointment, will be a woman currently employed at the department of transport.
Morwe said the appointments came at an exciting time for Transnet. The new managers had crucial roles to play to contribute to the building of economic infrastructures that would facilitate the movement of goods and reduce the cost of doing business, he said.
“I have every confidence they will bring to the jobs their passion, experience and skills within an environment which is conducive to development.”
Transnet’s market demand strategy involves the expansion of rail, port and pipeline infrastructure with a R300 billion investment programme over seven years.
With mega projects on the drawing board, the Port of Durban – which is already the busiest on the African continent, and the second biggest in terms of container capacity – is expected to play an even more significant role in the economic growth of SA and the African continent, says Transnet.
The port handles 80 million tons of cargo worth more than R100bn yearly. Half of SA’s breakbulk cargo and 65 percent of all containerised cargo flows through the port, with an average of 6 800 containers a day being handled at the Port of Durban Container Terminal, the largest in the southern hemisphere.
Morwe said TNPA was embarking on organisation transformation to redefine TNPA’s role in terms of the National Ports Act No 12 of 2005 and to deliver on the MDS programme.
Durban’s new port manager, Ntshingila, comes from Richards Bay where he was port manager from December 2005, and before that port manager at East London. He has a challenging time ahead while overseeing TNPA’s plans to spend R21.3bn on expanding and upgrading Durban harbour’s infrastructure over the next seven years.
He succeeds Ricky Bhikraj who was appointed port manager of Durban in 2007 and led the port through a period of massive expansion, including the entrance channel widening, the re-engineering and deepening of berths at Maydon Wharf and Island View, and the commencement of deepening and strengthening berths at the Durban Container Terminal. Bhikraj is taking up an executive position in planning within TNPA at head-office level, although he will continue to operate from Durban.
Khomo’s promotion from being in charge of ship repair and dry docks in Durban marks a period when, TNPA says, the Port of Richards Bay is set to become the premier bulk port for SA. With mega projects on the drawing board, the port which is SA’s largest in terms of cargo handled, has the potential to develop over time into one of the largest global ports by expanding up the Mhlatuze River floodplain. But one hopes those plans don’t remain overlong on the drawing board. They’ve been there for many years already.
In fairness, the Richards Bay story is a success story of a port that has expanded rapidly with the establishment of a new berth every second year on average. It was originally designed to handle 26m tons of coal over a 10 year period, but almost immediately exceeded this. It didn’t take long for Richards Bay to diversify into the handling of other cargoes. In the 2011 calendar year period, Richards Bay handled 86.6m tons of cargo of which breakbulk cargo amounted to 4.6m tons.
Of the total of 86.6 million tons, exports at the port amounted to 80.6m tons and imports 5.8m tons, with the balance in transhipments and coastal traffic.
The latest project at the port is the construction of berth 306 for steam-coal exports. This will allow the Richards Bay Coal Terminal to increase steam-coal exports from 72m to 84m tons per annum.
