CT celebrates R5.4bn upgrade

Transnet Port Terminals’ controversial rubber-tyred gantries (RTGs) are in Cape Town for the long haul, no matter what the critics say, and straddle carriers will become a distant memory. That was the emphatic message last week from Moira Moses, Transnet’s group executive for capital projects, as the parastatal’s ‘Big Guns’ assembled to fire a unitary salvo of support for the Mother City’s much-vaunted, refurbished R5.4 billion Cape Town Container Terminal. The underlying message remains clear: when the dust has settled two years hence – the end of April, 2013 – Cape Town will offer containerisation’s best in international terms. That’s if one can dismiss Cape Town’s insoluble sixmonths- of-the-year wind dilemma and TPT’s R420- odd million investment in a fleet of 28 new RTGs that are unable to deliver 100% efficiency year-round due to their inability to operate beyond wind speeds of 72km/h. In what was termed “The Cape Town Container Terminal Expansion Project Milestone Celebration”, the most telling reassurance of what will be on offer to local and international custom came from keynote speaker, public enterprises minister, Malusi Gigaba. “The efficiency of our container terminals will determine the capacity for international trade and will either enhance our competitiveness in engaging in trade or exacerbate our locational disadvantages.”