Having an efficient port would boost economic growth locally and globally and you would think it would be critical for any city to make sure their Port was world class.
Today I was reading an article about how Maersk shipping lines are now by passing Cape Town altogether. Maersk has two ships lying in wait outside the Port of Cape Town and a third on it's way. The two ships have already been waiting 12 days and 7 days respectively ad the third would be joining the queue, but has now bee ordered to continue to Europe instead. The average berthing for a container vessel is 40.3 hours globally for off loading and loading.
Cape Town 's Port is owed by Transnet a government SOE that is failing miserably. The Port is currently averaging just over 14 000 containers per week which is a far cry from most ports averaging 20 x that volume. The larger Chinese and Vietnam Ports are dealing with 100K containers daily so calling Cape Town a container port is kind of misleading. Just imagine a vessel with 15 000 containers would spend 7 days off loading which is also misleading as that is the entire capacity of the Port as nothing is automated so 7 days could be 2 weeks in that case.
Cape Town ranks 405th out of 405 Container Ports worldwide so rock bottom as they come last on all the key performances. A Port's job is to turn around a vessel in the quickest possible time period as the ships owners are paying for the dock side berth by the hour in dollars. A Port is expected to be efficient and to continually seek out better performances offering a better service.
Yu would think a Port like Cape Town would be offering a great service as they are on the lucrative China EU route now many ships are avoiding the Red Sea due to conflicts in the area. The reality is when ships are purposefully avoiding you then there is a serious problem.
The way I see this is the government has run the Port into the ground by not investing in automation and infra structure. If they processed more containers this would be a boom to the local economy creating many more jobs and at the same time creating more revenue. The person who is "managing" the Port is only looking at the berthing fees for revenue and why it makes no difference if a vessel spends 2 days or 2 weeks off loading and loading as the fees are still being paid.
A Port is a business that should be offering a service ad Cape Town is a prime Port as they have a captive audience with ships using the route more these days than they have in the past. The revenue being thrown away via ship chandlers is madness as this fills government coffers via taxes ad creates may jobs. Chandlers provide provisions like food and anything else a vessel may require from a new anchor chain to bunkering fuel. Cape Town should be having a booming economy just via the Port alone and not solely relying on tourism.
Unfortunately South Africa is lacking the end product due to the way the SOE's are being managed and the Port of Cape Town is a gold mine run correctly. I see this becoming foreign owned or foreign managed in the future as even though this would be a bad idea there is no other solution.