      |
|
Copyright © 2000 FleetWatch magazine and FleetWatch On-Line. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publishers. Views published are not necessarily those of the publishers. |
|
||||
| Past Issues |
September
2000
|
||||
|
|
|||||
|
The Woes of a Transporter Running a profitable transport operation in today's climate of high risk and high costs is hard work. However, when an overall drop in industry standards results in you being constantly hit by on-the-road adverse impacts beyond your control - or when your hijacked truck suddenly turns up on police premises and your bank's toll card system turns out to be a shambles - it becomes an endless uphill battle against all odds. FleetWatch editor Patrick O'Leary followed the fortunes of one company over a five week period to highlight what transporters are facing nowadays. In doing so, he found a man prepared to speak his mind on many pressing issues facing the industry.
International Delivery Company (IDC) is recognised as a professional transport outfit. For over 35 years it has been run by Peter Burkhalter who some two years ago handed over the reins of the MD's position to Clifford Blackburn. However, he has stayed on as chairman keeping his finger on the pulse of things. In the 'good old days', running the company was a lot of fun. Now it's become a grind - and the paste being added to the grinder is making the going rougher rather than smoother. The reason for this, according to Burkhalter, is that the company is being hit from all sides by outside influences that are causing costs to rise beyond control - one example being that the very people supposed to help protect your assets are alleged to be the ones who have cost you over R1-million in two years. The seeds of this story were sown when I received a telephone call from Burkhalter. "You must come and see me. I have a story you won't believe." Such a teaser is enough to prick any journalist's interest and it was thus that on returning from a Durban trip the next day, I went straight to the Kempton Park premises of IDC.
Bizarre story Burkhalter's office is situated alongside the company's ops room and it was here that we sat and began talking. I then heard what must rate as one of the most bizarre stories I have yet heard. "On September 9, 1998, we had a three-axle semi hijacked near Vosloorus. We immediately notified the anti-hijack unit of the SAPS in Kempton Park who began an investigation but nothing turned up. "This unit was later asked to hand over the case documents to the Serious & Violent Crimes Unit of the SAPS in Pretoria and we heard nothing more until just recently when I got a telephone call from an anonymous caller. He asked if that was IDC and told me the truck we had been looking for since 1998 was standing at the Police College in Pretoria. He then put the phone down." A little sceptical but nevertheless curious, Burkhalter phoned the SAPS truck anti-hijack unit in Kempton Park and, accompanied by two officers from this unit, went to the Police College - and there was the truck and trailer with the container on the back. "I immediately recognised it. In fact, the trailer had the original chassis number and plates still in place. There had been no tampering with these. The license disc was also in place. On the truck tractor you could identify the original colour on the rims, the air cleaner cover and the exhaust cover. It also still had the original long range fuel tank with the original bracket for the fire extinguisher made by us. You could also identify where the original IDC badges had been on the bumper. There was no doubt it was my truck," says Burkhalter. Although he had taken a spare set of keys, he asked a sergeant at the College for the original keys and they were given them. They worked but he used the spare keys to open the truck as well as the padlocks on the tool-boxes. Inside, he found that the satellite tracking system, radio and telephone had been removed - and by a professional. The original chart, however, was found in the tachograph. The truck had only clocked up 6 000 kms since it had been hijacked in 1998. And here comes the bizarre bit. When Burkhalter asked how the truck came to be at the Police College - and how it was that he, as the owner of the truck, nor the Kempton Park Truck Anti-Hijack Unit which was investigating the hijack, had never been notified of his truck being in the possession of the police, the sergeant said it had been used in an undercover job with the permission of the Attorney-General. Burkhalter asked for a copy of this written permission and was told he could not get it. "We have since found out that the original case documents have also apparently disappeared. It seems all documentation relating to this case have disappeared" "I was then told that if I remove the truck, I would be committing a crime. I had two officers from the Anti-Hijack Unit with me and I did remove it," he says. Back at the depot, Burkhalter immediately put the unit into the workshops and when his mechanics took out the batteries, one of them was an SAPS battery with an SAPS number on it. The workshops did a compete overall of the truck and it was back on the road within a few days. "I recall one of my drivers telling me he had seen an IDC truck operating in Zambia on two occasions and had thought it strange as the truck had Angolan number plates on it. I reckon it must have been this truck," says Burkhalter. The matter is now in the hands of IDC's attorney who is taking further action. In the meantime, Burkhalter is furious. "It's unbelievable! I have lost over R750 000 income from that truck and the demurrage on the container could run into tens of thousands of Rand. If what we've seen and heard is proved true, I will be looking for compensation for loss of earnings on that unit. It's now in the hands of my attorney," he says angrily. This anger stems from the fact that he says if the police had wanted to use one of his trucks in an undercover operation - as they allegedly did with this one - and had approached him for permission to do so, he would probably have given such permission and co-operated with the police. "But to just hold onto a hijacked truck and use it without informing the owner or the investigating unit, as seems the case, is beyond reason. Someone is going to have to pay." FleetWatch will follow the progress of subsequent actions arising from this incident and report back to our readers. Worst standards in 35 years This is just one - although admittedly one of the more outlandish examples - of where outside influences are making progress a major uphill battle. There are many others and Burkhalter ascribes the on-going battle - as outlined in the incidences below - as resulting from the fact that standards in the industry have dropped to such a degree that he reckons the industry is in the worst state he has seen in his 35 years involvement in trucking. "It's become a sad joke out there. Customer service levels are down, maintenance is down, law enforcement is non-existent, double standards are being applied by government to local and foreign operators and there is no organisation effectively representing the interests of this industry. It's a mess. No-one cares anymore." We're talking again a few days after our first meeting and his anger is being vented after we inspected a bucket of bolts collected by his tyre department since the beginning of this year. The bolts, nails and other assorted objects had been taken from the punctured tyres of his rigs. He had instructed the workshop to keep them as evidence of his observations on the low standards. And here's the crunch. Since the beginning of the year, 869 punctures have been recorded in the fleet. "It's crazy," he exploded as we looked down at the bolts spread on the ground. "In my 35 years I have never seen a mess like this. The bolts are being shed on the road from faulty equipment and we are picking them up in our tyres. This never used to happen and I put it down to the general state of unroadworthiness of the vehicles operating on our roads. Companies are not maintaining their vehicles and the result is they are falling apart out there." He is also angry at the extra costs his company is incurring because of the shoddy standards of others. "My drivers do not stop on the side of the road at night to change a tyre. They are too scared. So they ride to a safe spot and by that time, the tyre has disintegrated and is useless for retreading. We have to scrap it." And it's not only the punctures that have led to his conclusion that maintenance standards have dropped.. "I've been out there myself and have seen trucks operating at night with only one headlight, no tail lights and other defects. They are in a terrible state and the problem is, just as you don't see tail lights, nor do you see the police. They are nowhere to be seen. Law enforcement is non-existent," he says. "In the old days, if you stopped under a bridge to have a stretch, the police would be there in no time handing out a R300 fine. Nowadays you can stop anywhere, do anything and drive totally unroadworthy trucks and the police are nowhere to be seen. We need the help of the police because I can't carry on like this. It's costing too much money." He also feels that due to the lack of law enforcement, drivers are now operating in a climate where no discipline exists apart from measures that may be implemented in-house by companies who do monitor their drivers. "We have our own controls such as a zero tolerance policy towards drivers who exceed 90kph. If a driver is monitored exceeding this limit, we conduct our own disciplinary inquiry. However, we need the help of the police because we do have drivers who speed and they should be pulled off the road by the police, not by us. In any big company, there will always be those who disobey the rules and it shouldn't only be up to the company to catch them. Isn't that what the police are there to do?" he asks. Salvaging the wrecks And here is where his openness comes into play. We walk towards the workshops where a wrecked truck is being worked on to salvage whatever parts can be saved. It's a wreck. "That was an accident caused by one of my drivers who was drunk. You can highlight this to show that it can happen to even the best of companies. The point is, this guy was arrested and was soon out on bail. What is going to happen to him? Are we going to see him back on the road? This is where the authorities must back us. He should be given a harsh sentence and have his licence suspended. If the authorities are seen to deal harshly with such people, it will help clean up the industry. We cannot do it alone." It wasn't long after that he phoned me again concerning another wrecked truck. It had hit into the back of another truck which was parked on a bend on the side of the N3 without any warning triangles put out to alert other drivers of its presence. "My driver managed to avoided a full-on collision by swerving out at the last minute. However, while the other truck got away with mere damage to the trailer and to the tarpaulin, my truck is a write-off and my driver is lucky to be alive. When questioned, the other driver said he had pulled over to sleep and that he didn't have to put out warning triangles because it was not a break-down. And this was a driver from a reputable company. Who is training these guys? For the sake of a small investment into basic training on the rules of the road, hundreds of thousands of Rand could have been saved. It's ludicrous." It may be co-incidence but soon after this incidence, FleetWatch picked up a notice in a newsletter sent out to clients by Purdon Murdoch, insurance brokers in Pietermaritzburg which stated: "Our Claims Department has put through a request that your drivers be made aware of the importance of safety triangles and hazard lights being used when they stop on the side of the road. Please remind your drivers to place their safety triangles 45m behind the rear of the vehicle once they have stopped. This is the legal requirement. "Should a Third Party vehicle hit your vehicle from behind and your driver has followed this procedure accurately, you have every chance of defending yourself against the Third Party. On the other hand, if your driver does not follow the legal requirements, you can be held responsible for damages to the Third Party Vehicle. "Please could you spend the next couple of months reiterating the importance of the above with your drivers especially in view of the fact that the wet weather (i.e. poor visibility) season, is just around the corner." As stated, it may be a co-incidence but methinks it was one of their clients whose driver believed it was unnecessary to place his safety triangles out when sleeping. Hoes! Burkhalter also feels that the non-caring attitude towards the trucks and other issues has spilled over into the field of customer service. "And I have plenty evidence of this," he stresses, citing one example as being a new customer IDC recently gained. "This customer requested four trucks on the first day and when we sent our trucks, the customer phoned to cancel two. I asked why he had done this and he said it was the norm to order more than he needed as he had been let down so many times in the past. "On the second day he ordered six trucks and we sent six trucks. I phoned to ask how many he would have ordered in the past and he told me 16. He would have ordered 16 trucks to ensure he got six! And he was dealing with the big contractors, not fly-by-nights. He was amazed we were meeting his needs. In the past, meeting the customer's needs was a basic. Now it seems it's an exception," he says. Efficiencies at all-time low Expanding on the point of lousy service, he switches his attention to the harbours and specifically Durban harbour where, he says, the service standards and efficiencies have dropped to an all-time low. "We have to set times with our customers to load but we cannot do this anymore because we don't know when we'll be offloaded at the harbour. Just today one of my trucks arrived at the harbour at 9.00am and was told to wait until 2.00pm when a machine would be available. And it has been worse. One of my trucks arrived at 11.00am, off-loading began at 10.00pm and it only finished at 12.00am." The point he makes here is that his drivers are getting no sleep because their schedules are being totally thrown out by the inefficiency of the harbour operations. They have to do a round trip and instead of setting off at a decent hour, are having to leave Durban in the middle of the night after waiting hours for Portnet to offload. Or worse, they have to wait until the following morning to load before setting off back to Johannesburg. "It's no wonder there's such carnage on the roads. When will the government wake up to the fact that drivers need to sleep and this is being prevented by the inefficiency at the harbours. I contend that if the harbours would improve their services to the truckers, there would be less deaths from driver fatigue on the roads. As it is, our drivers are pressed for time and it is now being made worse through no fault of ours. "If the Government is serious about job creation, I'd suggest they need look no further than the harbours where more people and more equipment is needed to service the customers. As it stands now, the service is abysmal." One ticket for one trip He also points a finger at the traffic authorities for adding to the string of delays being experienced. "I know there is a problem of overloading but my trucks are pulled off for weighing at Pinetown, then again at Pietermaritzburg, then again at Midway, and then maybe again at Ladysmith. If we pass over one weighbridge with a clean ticket, that should carry for the entire route. We are wasting valuable time being stopped at all these weighbridges." He also feels some of the reasons behind the fines are ridiculous. "One of my trucks was pulled off at the Ladysmith weighbridge and when they couldn't find anything wrong, they took out a tape, measured the length and I got ticketed for being 22,5m. When the truck came back to our yard, I called in a professional engineer and both he and I got a measurement of 20m. That ticket was nonsense. It was totally unnecessary. It was wrong." He adds that this type of harassment from traffic officials makes him angry, especially in view of on-the-road law enforcement being minimal missing. "The police are hanging around weighbridges looking for any reason to ticket us but you won't see them out on the roads where trucks, taxis and others are travelling at 140kph killing people." He also questions the accuracy of the equipment being used by the traffic authorities. "One of our interlinks was registered on a weighbridge at 1,5t overload. We then took off all the accessories and equipment and went back over the weighbridge. It came in at 8t overload. We took weight off, not added it on. It's nonsense," he says. Double standards Another area where he has a gripe lies in the government's handling of local compared to foreign operators. Burkhalter sees double standards being applied with preference given to foreign hauliers over locals in terms of adhering to the law. "Their tyre configurations are illegal, their chevrons are illegal, their height is illegal and they tie tarpaulins, ropes and other items onto the tops of the containers - which is illegal. And that's just to mention a few examples of where they flaunt the law. If we are caught on any of these, we are fined yet they are allowed to travel through the country without ever picking up a problem. Surely the same rules should apply?" he asks, adding that he has written to the Minister of Transport outlining his case for equal standards to be applied, with no reply received as yet. "I am prepared to go to the High Court to sue the Minister on the double standards that are being applied. We invest to stay legal but foreign hauliers can operate in this country without adhering to the law - and they go unchallenged. It's wrong," he says. Administrative nightmare That's out on the road. Let's now move into the administrative department of the company and speak to IDC's financial director, Mäggy Burkhalter. She's furious and it all has to do with what she terms the 'absolutely shoddy' administration of their toll cards by Nedbank/ NedFleet. "We switched from using cash for our toll fee transactions to the NedFleet system as we thought this would be easier for us to administer and control. It's not. It's a shambles with inaccuracies all over. And when we query these inaccuracies, we can never be provided proof of the transactions," she tells FleetWatch. After spending some time going through the statements, I can vouch for it being a shambles. There are charges for fuel against cards that have embossed on them, in big red print - TOLL GATE ONLY. There are charges against a vehicle that has been sold out of the fleet and is recorded on a statement as a 'sold' vehicle. There are extra toll gate transactions on numerous entries on the statement - and so it goes on. To nutshell it all, I quote from a letter sent to NedFleet by IDC in which the queries were put forward in writing following a meeting between the two organisations. It reads like an administrative nightmare and was sent with several batches of statements with references to each page noted above the query. For ease of reading, we are merely quoting the queries :
System is disgusting "We moved to this system not only because it became dangerous for our drivers to carry cash, but also to make our lives easier. However, the exact opposite has happened. This is a nightmare. The system is disgusting. We are being overcharged on so many things and we can never get proof on transactions," says Mrs Burkhalter. That there was a problem was picked up in November last year when Mrs Burkhalter checked the September/ October statement. She saw 17 charges through the Mooi River toll plaza, 17 through Tugela, 18 through Marianhill and 30 through Wilge. She then checked another and saw 24 through Mooi River, 23 through Tugela, 24 through Marianhill and again, the odd one out - 34 through Wilge. "I decided to investigate further and it was then I realised the extent of the problem. It's massive and includes unjustified finance charges, incorrect toll fee charges, incorrect charges allocated to incorrect vehicles, and even charges with absolutely no explanation on the statements. On one statement, we had R2 119 slapped on with no explanation of what it was for. We've even been charged R564 for a vehicle that isn't ours. "They charge us and charge us and when we ask for proof, they can't give it to us. We have even found incidences where they have undercharged us. We can give them proof of that but they can't give us proof of their overcharging." Interesting is that after six months, Tolcon is unable to produce any proof of any toll transaction. And when they can give proof, it costs R25 a shot to get that proof - and even then it's not always correct. "I got print outs from Tolcon and it wasn't for my vehicles," says Mrs Burkhalter. Luckily for IDC, when the company switched to the NedFleet card system, they kept their own controls in place - and they are still in place. "Every driver records the where and when of every toll and every fuel transaction and those are handed in after every trip when he returns to the depot. So we have our own checks and balances and they come nowhere near to matching that of NedFleet." That's the manual system but there is further back-up in that every vehicle is also tracked via a satellite tracking system. Here too, historical records of the movements of vehicles as recorded by the system do not tally with the NedFleet transactions for those vehicles. While the big errors and big figures are of major concern, what is perhaps even more worrying are the many extra toll fee charges - normally added as one or two per pass. "One of my vehicles may pass through Tugela 20 times but I'm charged for 21 passes. We have discovered a number of such variances which adds up to a lot of money. The system is wrong. It is costing rather than saving us money." According to Mrs Burkhalter, the response from NedFleet has also been extremely tardy. "We've waited for ages for them to come back to us on our queries. I get the feeling it's a case of the big conglomerates dictating and the little guy not having a say. It's wrong. Somewhere along the line there must be some justice in the system," she says. Again IDC's attorney is working hand-in-hand with Mrs Burkhalter who is determined to ensure that in IDC's case, justice will be seen to be done. Where to from here? We titled this feature 'The Woes of a Transporter'. Given the above sorry tale of adverse factors that impact on the bottom line of a transporter such as IDC, it is an accurate title. But where to from here? Over to Peter Burkhalter: "Transporters must look inwards to improve themselves as there is no-one spearheading the drive to improve standards. There is no law enforcement and there is no organisation tackling the real issues facing transporters." On this point, he hits out at the Road Freight Association. "Where is the so-called Road Freight Association? If they held their meetings in South Africa where the problems are instead of in Mauritius, we may get somewhere. The RFA is supposed to be the body which helps solve the problems but they are nowhere to be seen. "All the RFA wants from us is membership fees but they are not doing anything to earn those fees. I opted to resign from the RFA as I don't see it tackling any of the real problems facing this industry. While the industry is in a crisis, they are seen partying in Mauritius. It's a disgrace. And you can quote me on that." He's right you know. The industry is in crisis. Standards have dropped and on-the-road safety is being compromised. Companies are going out of business - Roadcorp being the latest casualty in the big stakes with other smaller ones also falling by the wayside. It wasn't long ago that FleetWatch issued the call to operators to 'Police Yourself'. Do it. And do it now. It seems that's the sensible route to go. Footnote : FleetWatch compliments Peter Burkhalter for speaking his mind in such a frank manner on so many issues affecting truckers today. We have heard similar sentiments expressed by others on these issues but usually behind closed doors and 'not for publication'. Some of his comments may offend some readers and some parties, but he has exercised his right to have his say and tell it as he sees it. That's admirable. If any reader or organisation wishes to agree or disagree with any of his views, write to us and we will publish your input. |
|||||
