Background: With about 80% of world trade being seaborne, seaports’ capacity, efficiency and associated services are vital to ensure seamless, sustainable global supply chains. A lack of investment in marine services capacity and performance in South African ports remains a concern for port users and supply chain practitioners.Objectives: This study examines the capacity and performance of marine services in South Africa’s ports. The primary example examines marine services performance data for the Port of Durban.Method: This study uses Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) data and descriptive statistics to analyse marine fleet performance, bollard pulls and human capacity in South Africa’s ports to identify causes of shipping delays in the Port of Durban from 2014 to 2021.Results: The 8 years analysis show five most prominent sources of shipping delays in Ports as; tugboats occupied, shift changes, shipping movements, tugs out of commission and adverse weather conditions. Other factors identified were pilot-boat availability, overbooking slots, port meetings, etc. The performance of marine services are impacted by outdated wet infrastructure and a shortage of marine crafts and critical skills.Conclusion: There is a clear and justified need to increase physical and human capital investment in the provision of marine services and improve maintenance spending on critical infrastructure to reduce shipping delays and costs of conducting trade in South African (SA) ports.Contribution: The study compiles, analyses and provides a contextual understanding of the number of marine crafts, average bollard pulls, human resources capacity and causes of shipping delays in Republic of South Africa (RSA) ports.
Port community systems (PCS), as electronic platforms enabling the intelligent and secure exchange of information between public and private stakeholders in ports, are central to port supply chains. PCS drive productivity, efficiencies, and competitiveness whilst improving the port’s attractiveness. They connect port users and supply chain participants and allow them to share information efficiently on a single platform by drawing data from different enterprise resource management systems. Port systems are complex networks of functions integrated to deliver cargo services to port users. Developing countries’ ports have suffered adversely from their slow adoption of PCS; consequently, their performance improvements have stagnated over time. This article uses Soft Systems Methodology and applies it to the case of South Africa’s ports that are particularly affected by the absence of PCS. The article also presents a framework for implementing PCS. Primary data was gathered through 24 interviews and two port stakeholder workshops. The findings show that port users are operating on fragmented and different platforms, lack integration and collaboration, and no single platform is used to share critical shipping information. Nevertheless, the interviewees all supported the creation of a PCS, and this article develops and recommends a framework for implementing a PCS in South Africa.
Port governance structures are a vital factor impacting port investments, efficiencies, effectiveness and productivity. An important determining factor is the port management and whether it is centralized under the national government as a State-Owned Enterprise (SOE), decentralized to the municipal level, or alternatively privatized. Reforms in port management indicate that ports either subscribe to a public service port, tool port, landlord port or private port approach. Several inefficiencies exist in the governance, pricing and performance of marine services in South Africa. This study aims to evaluate the governance structure of marine services in South Africa’s ports. The research methodology included observations, a focus group with six participants and semi-structured interviews with twenty participants that included port managers, harbour masters, port experts, port agents, terminal operators, and cargo owners. The main findings confirmed the need for the participation of private service providers in the provision of marine services in South Africa’s ports and additional regulations on marine services to advance investment, performance and protection of port users. Although there is a need for private sector participation in the provision of marine services in South Africa’s ports, participation should enhance the country’s economic and developmental agenda, including job creation, investment in infrastructure, improved service provision and transforming the ports system.
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