Business seeks clarity on dig-out port

Companies affected by Durban’s plans to construct a R100 billion dig-out port at the old airport site are calling on Transnet for urgent clarity on the demolition of their properties before the 2016 construction deadline.

Grant Fowlds, managing director of Isegen, a company producing food chemical and acids that is affiliated to the petro-chemical industry, said while he supported the port project, there was concern among businesses in the area about when they would have to move.

“It’s not clear yet if we will have to go. It depends on how wide the channel will be. There has been preliminary discussion and we have seen the pictures of the new port, but there is a fair amount of work to be done if we do have to move. Construction is to start in 2016. That means the sooner we know, the sooner we’ll know how to plan,” Fowlds said.

Some of the properties under threat of demolition include a large SAPS yard, Sapref’s fibre manufacturing plant, engineering services company BNC Projects, a trucking business and a dump for old chrome.

While Transnet’s Lunga Ngcobo said a schedule for negotiations with the businesses would be set up this week, the chairman of the Prospecton Business Forum, Mark van Wyk, said all the businesses along the road to the Sapref refinery would be demolished.

“Sapref will get a new entrance road from the northern side of the old airport.”

Van Wyk said the forum was now urging businesses in the Prospecton area to join up and start attending information sessions.

“We want to get in early enough with the information. Businesses are very concerned. We have set up meetings, which have yet to be confirmed, with Transnet and eThekwini Municipality in coming weeks,” he said.

At a Prospecton Business Forum meeting called earlier this month to discuss the new port, Frikkie Brooks, head of the secretariat for the KZN Planning Commission, said while the south Durban basin was set for a huge boost with the port development, challenges lay ahead.

“Land values will go through the roof. We are breaking ground in 2016, the water will start to flow in 2020.

“Politically there is unanimous support and I believe there are going to be opportunities for everyone who wants to contribute, no matter who you are. Manufacturing will be the primary driver, followed by freight and logistics.”

However, Brooks said, Durban south was blacklisted for further international investment because of its “environmental unsustainability”. While these “ills needed to fixed”, the dig-out port offered the opportunity to do this, although Brookes conceded the environmental impact assessment process could take a long time and “would influence how the project would work out”.

“There are also challenges for the land use planners. Transport is a big issue, we have to deal with how we are going to get in and out of the port,” he said.

“If we don’t sort out the back-of-port, the rest won’t work. The truck volume coming in and out of the port will double.

“We have asked Transnet if they can’t improve their rail network in the short term. Some have suggested we build a dedicated freeway to Cato Ridge, but we can’t just think about getting out of eThekwini. The Clairwood Racecourse land is not big enough. City Deep in Gauteng is already over-subscribed. This development is not only going to affect us here, but the rest of the country as well. If eThekwini doesn’t work, KZN doesn’t work and if KZN doesn’t work, the rest of the country will not work.”