Privatisation plans for the Port of Durban hold hope for hauliers, but until then it’s a waiting game, reports Matthew Hattingh.
Enzo* hunches over his computer, flicking through windows. He opens a booking page and clicks a few boxes, then glances at a spreadsheet before consulting a hand-written list. It’s a rainy Tuesday morning in Durban. Nothing doing. Drivers come into the drab prefab office to collect documents. One, a middle-aged fellow, wants Friday afternoon off so he can go home to Paulpietersburg. A little after 10am, as Enzo is checking his emails for the umpteenth time, it drops – an update from Transnet. There are no slots at the Durban Container Terminal, it effectively says, Next review will take place at 14:10.
Welcome to the world of road freight, or at least as far as companies that ferry shipping containers to and from the Port of Durban are concerned. It’s not so much Big wheel keeps on Turin’, as a bellyful of Waiting in Vain.
Looking out through the office’s picture window, Enzo’s colleague, Anfield*, tells me 12 multi-million-rand truck-trailer rigs and their drivers are cooling their heels until slots become available. Slots are specific time periods and locations within the terminal that truckers must book online for loading and unloading containers.
Since May 2020 when Transnet introduced its truck booking system, the long lines of heavies idling outside and inside the port have shrunk. But with slots scarce, it has shifted the waiting game elsewhere – including to the yards of some of the 1 178 logistics firms operating within eThekwini.
Shortly after 2pm, as promised, a review of the available slots comes in from Transnet. Quick on the mouse trigger – “you just have to watch and wait” – Enzo snaffles us a single slot before all are gone.
With Duke*, another greybeard at the wheel, we leave the yard and drive to the port. We turn into Langeberg Road at the port at 3.03pm. Half an hour later in a slow-moving queue we reach a vast truck staging area. Known as A Check, it quickly fills and by early evening we count about 320 trucks parked in a series of long rows … waiting.
At about 10pm some trucks begin to move, and we get into Pier 2 terminal proper after midnight. More stops and starts follow before Duke eventually manoeuvres us into a loading bay beneath Tower 202. With little warning, at 2.28am, a straddle carrier drops a dirty-yellow, six-metre container onto our trailer – 29 tons, I’m told, of tiles. Duke locks down the trailer and we’re good to go. A shade after 3am and we are back in the yard. It’s been 12 hours since we set off.
“Terminal, Haai! Rubbish place,” Duke says.
** A number of people interviewed for this and a companion article declined to be named lest it soured their company’s relations with Transnet – or worse.
