Page 16 - Maritime Book 1

Meeting Resistance Head On
On their return from Rotterdam they met
with a lot of resistance from the old guard of tug masters, marine pilots and managers, who historically would have spent many more years at sea before getting their own licences. They sought to undermine the transformation by approaching the courts, complaining to their unions, the company’s customers and suppliers, international insurance and shipping fraternity – advising that Portnet was employing poorly trained, inexperienced, under-quali ed young, Black people and women as tug masters and marine pilots and in marine management, putting vessels, cargo and the marine environment at risk.
So intense was their resistance campaign
that Commander Mokhele and team had to approach the London insurance market to explain Portnet’s vision, strategy and plans
for the marine transformation programme. Presentations were made to multitudes of the underwriters covering the Transnet marine business risk to explain how the changes were necessary for the future of the country’s port industry. Lloyds thought the story was too good to be true and sent their chief broker to South Africa in 2002 to verify the facts. So impressed were they with the programme, and counter to the global trends in the immediate aftermath
of September 11, 2001, they rewarded South
Africa with reduced premiums. “Our strategy had received the nod of approval from the global insurance market; transformation had become a mainstream strategic business imperative”.
Out with the Old, In with New Infrastructure and Technology
“Another big change that was necessary
was the acquisition of new assets and infrastructure, such as tugboats and port control systems. Whereas the rest of the world was using tugboats that could be manned by
as few as three people, Transnet had tugboats manned by 13-18 people including cooks and cleaners – on a boat tied alongside the jetty for 20 hours a day, operating within line of sight!”
“I literally chucked out the old tugboats and our current design of new tugboats were designed and contracted to be built in South Africa. The new tugboats introduced into the eet were some of the most modern internationally
and only required crews of four or ve. Built in Durban by an empowered, proudly South African ship building yard with South African expertise, SAFBUILD, now Southern African Shipyards. The new tugboats were to be operated by a new generation of tug masters, predominantly Black youth, and women, enabling an inspired transformation of the entire port system.”
“We also needed new blood in Marine Engineering to maintain the eet and there were none, so we sought out young people in the mechanical engineering eld that we could transform into mariners.”
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