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No Goodies for Christmas or FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup
Media Release - Written by Road Freight Association.
9 December 2009
Tell Junior that there won’t be any delivery by Father Christmas this year…..
The movement of any truck carrying an international ISO standard “high cube” container has been banned by the Department of Transport with immediate effect.
This has been eagerly implemented by the Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) at Mkondeni near Pinetown in KwaZulu-Natal. Notwithstanding the fact that the world trades with these containers, never mind numerous proposals and requests from Business Unity South Africa, merchants and importers in general, freight forwarders whose business is the facilitation of freight worldwide – and sound reasoning from the Road Freight Association (RFA) arguing against the “huge safety risk” myth and the financial burden to the country a badly-timed equipment change will bring – government has once again used the “Vacuum Model” to distil policy decisions.
As we speak, trucks are being impounded by the RTI – causing major delays in the port, opportunities for criminals to fleece containers and vehicles, increasing traffic congestion and threatening the delivery of much-needed goods over the December Festive Season.
Even better, the RTI (whose main function is to see that transport flows freely and safely for all road users – including dealing with road traffic law offenders) has now instructed the MEC not to issue abnormal load permits as “operators are abusing the system”.
Interesting that the very structure responsible for ensuring the law is kept has decided to restrict the powers of the MEC and has effectively brought the movement of freight to a stop (at least 50% of all containers that move through the ports are of the new high cube design – and this percentage grows annually). Trucks that don’t have the abnormal load permit are also being impounded - despite a moratorium on this being agreed to.
Until recently there was a “Moratorium” on prosecutions in this regard due to several representations made to various authorities – mostly requesting that proper research be done regarding the issue of high cube containers, followed by a properly thought-out plan (should the decision be reached not to increase overall height with regard to these containers).
Up to this week road freight operators were granted abnormal load permits to allow the movement of high cube containers. “It appears that the RTI has rescinded on the agreement we had”, says the RFA’s spokesperson Gavin Kelly. “Some of our members have been told that no new abnormal load permits will be issued by the Kwazulu-Natal DoT, on instruction from the RTI. How can the prosecutorial arm of the DoT give such an instruction? This is a conflict of interest – and of great concern to the RFA. The RFA has not been consulted about this, nor has it even been officially informed of the sudden change”.
“The Road Traffic Act states that the MEC is allowed to issue permits for containers that fall outside of the standard sizes”, continues Kelly. “Why has this practice changed overnight? And on what grounds?” In 2007 the RFA successfully lobbied the DoT to fund research on the impact of the exceeding of the 4.3m maximum height by high cube container transporters. To date however this research has not been done. “How can the DoT unilaterally decide to block the movement of high cube containers without having done research beforehand?” asks Kelly.
On following this up with the national DoT, the RFA was informed that the reason for the current state of affairs is the implementation of TRH 11 (“The Conveyance of Abnormal Loads”). “The proposed date of implementing the TRH11 has never been communicated to industry”, says Kelly. “Some KZN officials have reportedly told operators to adapt their equipment (ie. trailers) for transporting these containers. Obviously these individuals are not aware of the realities of trucking operations. Changes that need to be made to vehicles cannot happen overnight”.
Kelly warns: “Right now operators are being fined and vehicles impounded – with the instruction to remove the container onto a legal trailer - which for all intents and purposes does NOT exist on South African roads (especially due to the TRH 11 guideline document, which rules out low bed type trailers, which are in the main AV abnormal registered equipment). There are currently over 50 vehicles standing at one weighbridge alone. No reasonable operator will now transport high cube containers under the present ruling – as an operator will now incur a fine and have equipment impounded – with little or no alternative equipment available to legalise transport. The timing of implementation also leaves much to be desired.”
Under these circumstances operators are being advised by the RFA to refuse to transport high cube containers.
“The consequences to the economy and the non-delivery of goods are dire”, Kelly concludes.
