Programme Director
The Premier of KwaZulu-Natal Dr Zweli Mkhize
KwaZulu-Natal Economic Development and Tourism MEC Mr Michael Mabuyakhulu
Eastern Cape Transport MEC Ms Gishma Barry
Representative of Durban City Mayor Councillor Hoorzuk
Chairperson of the Ethekwini Maritime Cluster Mr Janie Roux and all the chairpersons and boards present
CEO of SAMSA Commander Tsietsi Mokhele and all the CEO’s present
Captains of industry
Distinguished guests
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
Programme Director, I must start by stating that our 2010 Transport Month Campaign has so far showed South Africa’s steadfast, competitive and focused transport infrastructure planning following our successful hosting of an exciting 2010 FIFA World Cup. Being in its third week, our Transport Month Campaign has highlighted the challenges we are facing with regard to maritime, road, rail and air transport infrastructure and services. We are also getting opportunities to discuss ways on how we can best address the challenges that we face.
Through the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) Transport Conference that was held in Midrand this week, the roads conference that was hosted by the South African Roads Federation Roads Conference in Cape Town, the Eastern Cape road indaba we held on Thursday and the SAMSA’s planned series of events we have learned many lessons.
We are keen to work on interventions that will expedite fast and sustainable solutions to our transport infrastructure challenges. With the maritime industry contributing significantly to South Africa and the region’s economic growth, we should develop a broader and much wiser approach on how we should work to enhance the development of this sector.
The Port of Durban is South Africa’s largest port in terms of value cargo handled as well as number vessel arrivals per annum. It is estimated that the port and its related industries contribute in excess of 20 percent of Durban’s gross domestic product (GDP). Durban is approximately 55 percent of the KwaZulu-Natal GDP, which in turn is approximately 15 percent of the South African GDP. Thus in round figures the Maritime Industry in Durban contributes between 1.5 and 2.0 percent of the national GDP. Depending on which sub-sectors are included in the estimate, this points towards a contribution to the local GDP of between R25 billion and R35 billion according to Port of Durban statistics. This is how important is this sector to our economy and our trading partners.
In today’s global economy, hundreds of millions of people all over the world rely on ships to transport the great multitude of commodities, fuel, foodstuffs, goods and products on which we all depend. Yet, for most of them, shipping, not to mention the huge range of related maritime activities that, together, go to make up what is loosely termed “the shipping industry”, does not register a particularly strong echo on their personal radar. The very nature of shipping makes it something of a “background” industry. For most people, most of the time, ships are simply “out of sight and out of mind”, and the same, as a consequence, can be said of the seafarers that operate the world’s fleet, despite the fact that the global economy depends utterly on their presence. Seafarers are, in effect, the lubricant without which the engine of trade would simply grind to a halt.
It is, of course, sad when workforces are unrecognised and more or less taken for granted. When, for example, we refuel at a filling station, we do not, generally, pause to think of all those who have laboured in the various sectors of oil exploration, crude transportation and fuel production process. Nor, when we sit at the table to eat our daily bread, do we pause to think of those who brought the grain that enabled our local baker to bake it. Well, behind all these good things that we get up to, and in order to sustain the life we choose, some people work hard to ensure this happens. These are the 1,5 million seafarers, who deliver to more than 6,5 billion people 90 percent of the trade they require in order to support normal life.
Seafaring is a difficult and demanding job, with its own set of unique pressures and risks. At the end of a long and stressful day, there is no return home to the family; no evening with friends at the tavern or the pub; no change of scenery; no chance to properly relax; unwind or distress. Just the relentless drone of the diesels and the never-ending movement of the vessel that is not only the seafarers place of work but also their home, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks and often for months on end; and, ever-present in the back of their mind, the possibility of natural and other, invidious hazards.
In South Africa this is the workforce that has been reduced beyond the capacity to sustain our trade, which has been depleted beyond its ability to self-renew. This is the seafarer contingent of this country; represented by some of the beautiful ladies present here. ‘The Sisters of the Sea’ are part of that contingent. As you all know by now the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has declared 2010 the Year of the Seafarer. And as we celebrate the Year of the Seafarer we take a close look at the developments of the broad maritime industry and make it part of our Transport Month calendar for the year. The IMO’s intention has been not only to draw attention to the unique circumstances within which seafarers spend their working lives, while rendering their indispensable services, but also to make a palpable and beneficial difference. This is also to draw attention to a workforce that is largely unheralded and unacknowledged, often even within the industry it serves.
Today, as we continue to grapple with how to better support our men and women, our fellow citizens without whom 98 percent of the trade of this country, which translates to 58 percent of our GDP would not be possible, I wish to commit our government to ensuring that the much needed capacity building takes place.
As we congratulate our women seafarers who have gone the extra-mile to ensure we showcase our achievements thus promoting to maritime interests, I make a personal declaration to ensure the conditions of seafarers are improved.
It is for this reason we are gathered here, called by SAMSA to its launch for a Centre that will ensure that:
- Never again shall we not be able to account for where our seafarer citizens are
- Never again shall we not be able to be accessible to all our seafarers whenever we should be required so, and wherever they may be.
SAMSA Centre for Seafarers and Fishing
Ladies and gentlemen, today SAMSA launches the Centre for Seafarers and Fishing. This is the centre at the core of our ensuring high quality seafarers through:
- Quality compliance with international obligations in terms of Standards for Training and Certification of Watchkeepers (STCW)
- Ensuring the wellbeing of South African seafarers and fishermen by improving the reliability of adequate systems and enabling regulatory regime.
With regards to the fishing, a very large component of our maritime constituency, the Centre will seek to provide for the welfare and dignity that remain a big challenge in this environment.
Year in, year out, this sector has been losing lives through:
- Vessels capsising mostly due to unacceptable vessel design
- Vessels colliding largely due to poor training as well as overworked watchkeepers
- Men overboard and many other factors.
These important members of our society die quietly with dependants left behind with untold suffering. The social system is unable to support these dependants if the deceased bodies are not recovered and the legal process of presumption of death in the instance of the body not being recovered is a costly and elaborate one.
The Centre for Seafarers and Fishing will ensure that we are able to deal with all these challenges. SAMSA’s CEO Tsietsi Mokhele tells me that we should have done this a while back as each life lost is one too many.
To maintain South Africa’s rich history of seafaring, the process of developing a strong maritime industry has been under way since 1998, when the Department of Transport established the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA). To add impetus to our maritime progress and developments initiatives SAMSA should continue to work hard and have its presence in international maritime affairs and persist to be a regular participant in regional and international organisations like the Indian Ocean Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control, the International Maritime Organisation and the International Labour Organisation.
As we champion and populate the importance of the maritime industry during Transport Month we need to focus our activities around:
- The importance of awareness on the importance of maritime transport to our lives, economic and social development
- The role of maritime in social, security and defence as well as ecological
- Highlight progress made in the transformation and advancement of our female seafarers
- Promotion of maritime transport jobs and careers
- Providing a platform to showcase the country’s maritime legacy, world class national skills; development infrastructure and programmes
- Profiling the dignity of the seafarer
- Providing a platform to showcase the country’s maritime legacy, world class national skills development infrastructure and programmes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must say that the launch of the SAMSA Centre for Seafarers and Fishing today will also add impetus to our endeavour to make South Africa a competitive country in the maritime industry. The launch of the centre comes at a time when South Africa and SAMSA need to stand up and be counted with regards to the value it assigns to the life of the Seafarer.
In order to ensure a responsive policy and regulatory environment as well as the ability to influence maritime economic interventions, in the Department of Transport we have decided to form a stand-alone directorate of Maritime. As I draw to a conclusion and in order to get back to the capacity issues I raised earlier, the Centre will lead the efforts in ensuring that the quality and management of training is taken care of by all stakeholders, particularly within government.
South Africa requires at least 36 000 seafarers based on the over 4 million tons of cargo that we currently handle but we currently stand at 1 800, most of whom are not at sea.
The Centre for Seafarers and Fishing will ensure that we are able to produce more seafarers through intervention with education and training systems through institutions of higher learning like the existing universities of technology. As government we are working hard to ensure that the big challenge of berths for cadetships is being addressed. The intensification of maritime awareness interventions will be the strategy that will through partnerships with critical players within the industry, belie this future reality.
Women in maritime voyage
As a pilot project SAMSA, working in conjunction with the Department of Environmental Affairs, Transnet, the Navy and other industry stakeholders mobilised and sailed the deep-sea vessel SA Agulhas with an all-women crew. The vessel left Cape Town on Monday morning, called into Port Elizabeth on Wednesday and arrived in Durban yesterday.
The significance of the all-women crew was to demonstrate the ground we have covered in gender transformation. The harbour services in all the three ports were also provided by women, including all female crews on South African built harbour crafts. The intention was to mark the Year of the Seafarer by showcasing our country’s achievements in the empowerment of our women in maritime.
As we welcome the ladies to the port of Durban, at the tail end of this historic voyage we are mindful of the fact that were on the verge of the creation of a new history. Those in the maritime industry will know that the SA Agulhas is reaching the tail end of its lifespan of conducting groundbreaking research expeditions to the Antarctica and other islands.
To this end SAMSA will initiate, in the near future, a process of finalising the purchase of this vessel to use it as a platform to intensify it’s interventions towards providing berths and therefore the skilling of maritime graduates and young cadets that this country’s institutions of higher learning continue to produce.
This is anticipated to be finalised prior to 2012 when the Department of Environmental Affairs takes ownership of the new vessel which is currently under construction. We do hope that this initiative, as well as the critical cooperation within government will lead us closer to our solutions for the shortage of cadetship berths that is the bottleneck on our training system. We do also hope that as we ramp up capacity in our training institutions, more stakeholders will add their weight behind the effort. To all of you here continue playing your part in protecting and advancing the maritime interests for this country.
I thank you.
