Programme director
CEO of SAMSA, Commander Mr T Mokhele
MAIIF delegates
Government officials
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed a great privilege for me to address this august and glittering occasion, where maritime sector stakeholders under the leadership of the Maritime Accident Investigators’ International Forum (MAIIF) are rubbing shoulders with a mutual interest of improving safety in our waters.
My sincere gratitude goes to the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) for inviting me to deliver a brief message on behalf of a Province that has the longest coastline in the country of 800 kilometres, but with no major maritime related activities.
On behalf of provincial government, I would like to express our sincere appreciation for SAMSA to convene this MAIIF conference in the Eastern Cape, especially during the week when all of us are celebrating the countdown to the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, the first ever to be held on African soil.
This conference adds up to the variety of activities that are taking place in our Host City, Nelson Mandela Bay and we hope that SAMSA and MAIIF are ready to contribute in the success of this tournament.
Last month, in my last broader session with law enforcement agencies in preparation for the tournament, we all made a commitment to ensure that we work together with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that we deliver a crime-free and incident-free tournament.
Today, I would like to make a clarion call to MAIIF and SAMSA to join forces with us in an effort to advance maritime safety through the exchange of ideas, experiences and information acquired in marine accident and incident investigation during the tournament.
Such active involvement will enable us withstand any challenge due to the additional human resources. The identified challenges include the curbing of human trafficking and all ports of entry need strict monitoring.
Despite this challenge, As the MEC for Transport, Safety and Liaison in this province, I am convinced that we are ready to receive the world to Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, the Eastern Cape and South Africa.
We have already made indelible advances, which include among others:
* The finalisation of our safety and security plans
* Disaster management plans
* Completion of deployment strategies for personnel and resource allocation at the stadium, public viewing areas and ports of entry
* Training of some officials on foreign languages
* Venue Operations Centres (VOCs) have been identified at the stadium, in airports; harbours; hotels and rail stations
* Immigration officers will be deployed to this City and at each of the Public Viewing Areas
* Staff have been capacitated to deal with issues of human trafficking and assist victims.
Beyond the 2010 FIFA World Cup
After the blowing of the final whistle on 11 July 2010, we are expected to start looking at the ways and means of repositioning the maritime sector in line with the development priorities of government.
The Eastern Cape Provincial Administration has further adopted a provincial strategic framework, which promotes, among other things:
* Building a skills and human resources base
* Rural development
* Speeding up growth and transforming the economy to create decent work and sustainable livelihoods
Maritime is a new competency for provincial government. National policy and legislation, in particular the South African Constitution Act, 1996, provides adequately for provincial interest in those all maritime affairs.
Although the exploitation of marine resources and the combating of marine pollution by ships in South Africa’s exclusive economic zone off the coast of the Eastern Cape are national responsibilities, provision should nevertheless be made in a maritime plan.
The most important aspect of provincial maritime planning undoubtedly concerns the maritime orientation of the provincial community and the cost-efficient flow of imports and exports, which requires the planning and structuring of integrated maritime supply chains that eventually should include port terminals, when ports are acquired by the province, or municipalities in which they are situated, as landlords.
As a member of the National Port Security Audit Team, the Eastern Cape has already audited the safety and security aspects of our provincial ports as from February 2008 with the intention to improve safety of our seas and contribute in our tourism development strategy, which is the main pillar of our provincial growth and development plan.
Since then, we have been embarking on various maritime safety initiatives, especially in the Port St Johns Municipality, which included:
* Procurement of two boats to the municipality to assist the Noqekwana community and tourists to cross the Umzimvubu River
* Procurement of safety net for the Second Beach
* Erection of a storage warehouse for Maritime Safety equipment such as rescue boats, diving equipment, lifesavers equipment etc.
Through our Freight Logistics Plan, we are looking at the capacity of both our sea and rivers as a means of creating jobs for communities living along these natural resources and grow the tourism industry to another level.
We further intend to use our inland waterways as means of transporting goods and passengers. Countries like Netherlands and Germany already use their rivers as a mode of transport, with different sizes of ships to transport all kinds of diversified cargo.
In the recent past, it has become evident that the high economic growth rate of the Eastern Cape continued to put pressure on government to invest on road infrastructure, rail and ports.
Presently, there is a huge imbalance in the use of our infrastructure for the carriage of goods within the supply chain, as the volumes are largely biased towards road usage.
In response to this challenge, we have resolved to invest in an integrated multimodal transport system leading to various destinations, including our ports. No single mode of transport is able to carry all the cargo volumes on its own.
Our stakeholders have expressed an interest in certain railway and port links and this is very encouraging to us as a department, as we seek to reach a balance in the use of our sea, air, rail and roads.
In the past, Eastern Cape had a variety of ports, which were different in size, but today, we only have three ports in East London Port, Port Elizabeth Port, which service very large automotive industry volumes and agricultural exports; and the newly built Port of Ngqura, which is a deep sea water port that is strategically positioned to compete globally.
We are gearing up to tackle our maritime challenges head on and ensure that we complement all the initiatives that already exist within and around the maritime industry.
At a provincial level, we may not be able to attract ship owners to the National register, but we certainly have the population that can man the ships.
Through our Human Resource Development Programme, we want to reach out to the communities and raise awareness amongst our youth, introducing them to the field of maritime as a carrier path.
Our goal is to have a number of the Eastern Cape youth as seafarers or even captains in a few years to come.
Since 2008, we have been attempting to get Eastern Cape youth involved in maritime through offering bursaries for courses in maritime and shipment studies and port engineering studies.
We only became successful this year, when one of the girl children, who was involved in our “Take a girl child to work” programme qualified for such a bursary and is currently studying in Cape Town. Malibongwe igama lamakhosikazi!
In the last financial year, our maritime unit conducted career awareness campaigns in 48 secondary schools in the province and the target was Grade 12 learners. This year will see these career awareness campaigns continuing to target grade 10, 11 and 12 from 60 secondary schools. We are further holding Maritime Safety Awareness Campaigns in various municipalities along the coast in an effort to ensure coherent approach on maritime matters.
We will be targeting youth from the rural arrears and teach them how to swim in safe waters and unsupervised sea swimming during high seasons.
As we speak we are busy with the second phase of the development of our integrated provincial maritime plan, which is expected for completion in September 2010 and will guide our maritime activities and the integration with other modes of transport that will serve to benefit the province socially and economically.
I would like to promise SAMSA that we are going to complete this process on time to ensure that we launch this plan when the province hosts the World Maritime Day in East London on 21 September 2010.
I would like to call upon all MAIIF members to diarise this important event, which is going to be celebrated in our province by all South Africans.
In conclusion, I would like to wish SAMSA and MAIIF a successful conference and hope that through your deliberations, we will be able to benefit as a country and the province of the Eastern Cape.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Transport Safety and Liaison, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
8 June 2010
Source: Department of Transport Safety and Liaison, Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ectransport.gov.za)
