Merchant Shipping Bill: Clock's Ticking To Object To Cabotage

An urgent appeal has gone out to local shippers, the freight forwarding community and the liner trade serving South Africas ports to meet a tight deadline for objecting to the governments contentious plans for in-shoring cargo movement along the countrys coastline.

According to a notification by the Portfolio Committee on Transport, the time period for interested people and stakeholders to submit written comments on the Merchant Shipping Bill, has been extended to April 25.

Terry Gale of Exporters Western Cape EWC said it didnt give industry much time to object to section B12 of 2023, whereby government wants one shipping line that will be responsible for moving ocean cargo along the countrys coastline, known as cabotage.

In March, the EWC chairperson warned that cabotage would be catastrophic for the freight industry, as essentially it entails a hub port system whereby independent ocean carriers will not be able to call at more than one port on the countrys coastline.

He told a gathering of shippers in Cape Town that it would bring about double-handling of cargo and multimodal complexity that would cause further supply chain delays.

Gale is not alone in saying that a government-appointed shipping line responsible for cabotage will most likely result in the formation of another state-owned entity.

They should rather concentrate on sorting out our ports, he said at the time.

He stressed that if the countrys problematic ports were any indication of how capable the country would be in succeeding with cabotage, the local industry should be concerned.

Its a ridiculous idea, Gales on record as saying.

The exact stipulations of the bills relevant cabotage section are as follows:

to provide for the powers and duties of the minister and the South African Maritime Safety Authority in the administration of this Act to provide for the registration, permitting, and licensing of ships and the establishment and operation of a shipping information centre in the Republic to provide for the application of labour laws to seafarers to provide for the conditions of employment of seafarers and the health and well-being of seafarers on board a vessel to promote the safety of life at sea to establish inspection and enforcement mechanisms, including those for marine casualties and crimes committed on ships to provide for the regulation of marine traffic to provide for legal proceedings and jurisdictional matters to recognise and incorporate into domestic law international conventions to which the Republic is bound in terms of the Constitution to repeal certain Acts to provide a transitional framework for the new provisions of this Act and to provide for matters incidental thereto.

It is specifically the 'regulation of marine traffic' 7 that is feared by the freight industry.

Many of the bill's cabotage detractors argue that government-sanctioned control of coastal cargo movement by an appointed independent shipping line, or a new line funded and owned by a public sector entity, will be open to abuse.

Gale told Freight News this Monday: Its important that we fight this with everything weve got. We simply cannot afford this.

Enquiries, as well as written submissions, can be sent to the Portfolio Committee on Transport Attention: Valerie Carelse, 3rd floor, W/S 3/79, 90 Plein Street, Cape Town 8001, or emailed to merchantshippingbillparliament.gov.za .

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