Moves towards port productivity

State of the Maritime Nation Part 2

To put this goal into perspective, it is worthwhile considering that a case study on the competitiveness of the Port of Durban that was published in 2014 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), highlighted an existing goal to achieve 28 and 30 moves per hour for Durban Container Terminal 1 and Durban Container Terminal 2 respectively. That a goal established more than a decade ago has not been achieved or revised should be cause for concern.

The discussion around port performance is ongoing in South Africa and the latest container port performance ranking does not take into consideration gains that may have started to take hold in the current year. That said, however, continued overall placement of four South African ports at the bottom of a long list of hundreds of international ports is a concern. Even as more ports are included in the ranking, the Ports of Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Ngqura show no real signs of improving their rankings.

Transnet National Ports Authority will no doubt focus on the fact that the World Bank’s rankings highlight that the Port of Cape Town achieved the largest jump in CPPI score from 2023 to 2024. While this may seem applaudable, it should be stated that in 2023, Cape Town was ranked 387^th out of 387 ports. The improvement in its CCPI score of nearly 240 points saw it rank 400^th out of 403 ports in the latest report.

So, yes, the Port of Cape Town is no longer at the bottom of the list, but guess what? The Port of Durban has moved in to take that dubious honour. Also included in the ranking, the Port of Ngqura – developed as a greenfield project to become the country’s efficient container hub port – ranks just one ahead of Durban after hovering at the bottom of the rankings since 2020.

The Port of Port Elizabeth is the only South African port to be featured a little more favourably over the last five years, but has continued to fall consistently towards the bottom since peaking in 2021.

Even if the Minister’s ambitions for moves-per-hour are met in four years time, our ports will be ranked alongside ports that are already achieving these efficiencies with strategies to improve over the same time period. It is no longer good enough to set future goals that meet current international standards.

Getting a medal for the “most-improved” when the base is so low within an environment of ever-improving international benchmarks is not going to be enough to position South Africa’s ports as gateways to African markets – especially when all other listed African ports rank as higher performers.

Despite this poor performance, the World Bank Report does concede that early data for 2025 shows a steady improvement. “Based on latest data provided by Transnet, between mid-2024 and August 2025, vessel anchorage in South African ports went down by about 75%, gross crane moves per hour improved by 13%, and ship working moves went up by 25%.”

By Colleen Jacka, Editor Maritime Review Africa

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