The co-evolution of Saldanha Bay (town and hinterland) and its Port

Abstract

Saldanha Bay Port is located 110 km north-west of Cape Town. The port is one of the best natural harbours on the south-western coastline of the African continent. Historically, the establishment of the town of Saldanha Bay and the development of the greater Saldanha Bay region (its hinterland) were linked to the port and its functions. In July 2014 the South African government launched the ‘Phakisa’ strategy to unlock the economic potential of South Africa’s oceans – stylised as the ‘blue economy’ – with Saldanha Bay Port as part of the strategic plan to create jobs and alleviate poverty in the West Coast region. This paper examines the role Saldanha Bay Port has played in the establishment of the town of Saldanha Bay, the transport network in the region, as well as the ongoing evolution and development (socio-economic transformation) of its hinterland. First, an overview is presented of appropriate literature on evolutionary economic geography and on the role of port cities in regional development. Second, the Phakisa strategy for unlocking the economic potential of South Africa’s ocean areas and harbours is introduced. Third, a case study is reported of the co-evolution of Saldanha Bay Port and its hinterland. Finally, conclusions are drawn on port–town and port–region relationships and some suggestions are made for research.

Keywords

Saldanha Bay Port regional development port–town relationship Phakisa strategy oil and gas service infrastructure

Introduction

Throughout history, the economic dynamism of many cities has been linked to their ports which play critical roles as nodes of employment and commercial interaction with broader global market processes. The movement of goods through ports creates employment at the local and regional levels with direct economic impacts being experienced on local economies (Fujita and Mori, 1996; Hoyle, 1989; Siegesmund et al., 2008). Ports occupy valuable space near other urban activities – they are a source of economic opportunities, but they can also be sources of conflict (Abdullah et al., 2012; Daamen, 2007). Each port serves and competes for a share of the traffic generated in its own hinterland and in the broader market area comprising the port with other ports and their hinterlands throughout the world with which it is connected (Dunford and Yeung, 2009). While ports around the world have been differentially affected by globalisation, the rise of containerisation has also impacted on the role and place of ports and activities performed within them (Lee et al., 2008). These processes have helped to lead to a scenario in which seaport gateways are becoming increasingly disconnected infrastructurally, economically and institutionally from the city regions that host them (Hall, 2007). Modern port developments have created remarkable changes in the dynamics of traditional ports and port communities (Tiesnese, 2012). These disconnections and changes raise a variety of dilemmas for host localities, their communities and civic administrations.

Saldanha Bay Port is an industrial and bulk-cargo handler, located north-west of Cape Town in South Africa. Saldanha Bay town has a relatively strong manufacturing sector and it is a well-known harbour town. The regional economy is based on steel manufacturing, fishing, tourism and harbour-related industries. In 1976 the port was extended and deepened to accommodate larger ships. During the 1980s the completion of a multipurpose cargo terminal enabled oil imports and the export of high-value iron-ore, lead and copper. In 2011 Saldanha Bay region¹ was listed as one of the presidential priority development regions (National Planning Commission, 2011) and in 2013 it was officially declared an industrial development zone (IDZ) (The Presidency, 2012). In July 2014 the South African government launched the Operation Phakisa strategy (The Presidency, 2014) to unlock the economic potential of South Africa’s ocean areas. The so-called ‘blue economy’, of which Saldanha Bay Port is deemed to be a part, aims to create jobs and alleviate poverty in the West Coast region of the country. The IDZ of Saldanha Bay is strategically positioned to serve the envisaged oil-and-gas sector on the South Africa west coast and that of the west coast the African continent more broadly (Jacka, 2015). The establishment of the town of Saldanha Bay and the development of its hinterland have always been linked to the evolution of the port’s functions and capacity.

This paper examines the role Saldanha Bay Port has played in the establishment of the town of Saldanha, the associated transport network and the ongoing evolution and development (socio-economic transformation) of the region. First, an overview is provided of the relevant literature on evolutionary economic geography (EEG) and the role of ports in regional development. Second, the Phakisa strategy of the South African government to unlock the economic potential of South Africa’s ocean areas and harbours is introduced. Third, a case study is detailed about the co-evolution of Saldanha Bay Port and its hinterland. Finally, conclusions are drawn on port–town and port–region relationships and suggestions are made for future enquiry.

EEG, the co-evolution of cities and ports and regional development

EEG views economies as evolutionary processes unfolding in space and time. It focuses on the path-dependent dynamics underlying uneven development in space (Martin and Sunley, 2006, 2011). This approach has contributed significantly to the enrichment of economic geography, adding new perspectives to the long-term process of structural change over space and in time (Brouder, 2014; Jovanovic, 2009). EEG studies the origin, changes, direction and speed in the spatial distribution and organisation of production, as well as consumption, over time. It analyses the dynamic changes in the economic landscape. The EEG approach assists in explaining the spatial evolution of firms, industries, networks, cities and regions (Boschma and Frenken, 2006; Boschma and Lambooy, 1999). This article uses the EEG approach to gain an understanding of the role that a port plays in the development of a specific port city and its hinterland.

The gateway functions of port cities are different to those of central places, the latter mainly serving the ‘land around’ their cities (Bird, 1980). Vallega (1983) has interpreted port development and regional development as two distinct processes with episodic and indirect interactions. Ports are embedded not only in transport and supply chains, but also in associated urban economies and industrial areas that are governed by different forces and regulations than those of transport businesses, such as urban governance, regional, national planning and industrial policies seeking to levy rents from footloose activities (Markusen, 1996). Hall (2002) has characterised the three different roles of a port as infrastructure, cargo and trade hub. The impact a port will have on its hinterland is dependent on the role(s) it plays. The port-maritime sector is subjected to and its main facilitator of the process of global economic integration (Pinder and Slack, 2004). Ducruet and Lee (2006) have reviewed the complementary and contradictory roles of ports in the evolution of port cities and their hinterlands. They questioned models which considered the functional and spatial separation between the city and its port as an ineluctable process (Ducruet and Lee, 2006). According to them port–city evolution is gradual rather than linear or chaotic and, in many cases, largely influenced by regional factors and local strategies.

Technological changes, the move away from conventional shipping and cargo handling to container ships, as well as the rise of hub ports in the 1990s have dramatically altered the traditional and symbiotic port–city relationships (Ducruet and Lee, 2006; Hall, 2007). There has been a growing degree of disconnection between ports and their host cities, particularly because of globalisation and containerisation (Hall, 2008). As the local and regional economic linkages embodied in the goods shipped through ports have been loosened, questions about the changing nature of employment in ports and port-related sectors have become salient (Jaffe, 2010). The economic activities associated with ports comprise several groups. One group includes cargo and passenger handling and storage and distribution activities located in ports and in their city centres. A second group comprises a set of processing industries taking advantage of the intermodal, trans-shipment and break-of-bulk functions of ports. A third group of industries located in the port–industrial complexes are those whose inputs comprise bulk commodities imported through the port (Dunford and Yeung, 2011). Saldanha Bay Port fits into the last two categories. Concomitant with the trans-shipment and break-of-bulk functions (crude oil and iron ore) and the associated activities in the industrial areas adjacent to this port are negative externalities (noise, pollution and visual blight) that can deter further economic diversification and development (Welman and Ferreira, 2014).

In many developed countries the public sector has redefined its role in ports through privatisation and corporatisation schemes (Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2000). The role of port is being altered multimodal transport networks, less labour-intensive equipment, service specialisation and the concentration of economic wealth which generally fosters increases in traffic (Dunford and Yeung, 2011). According to Ducruet (2009), views on ports and regional development can be grouped broadly into optimistic and pessimistic categories. The optimistic view focuses on the role of seaports as engines of local and regional economic growth (Fujita et al., 1999). The pessimists view ports – more passively – as simply responding to demand through the physical transfer of freight flows (Fujita and Mori, 1996; Stern and Hayuth, 1984). The latter view fuels the academic discourse on whether infrastructure fosters or follows development (Ducruet, 2009; Rietveld, 1989) and the point structuralist geographers make that ports link local economies to the global economy with both positive or negative consequences (Jacobs, 2007). Ferrari et al. (2010), describes the relationship between ports and hinterlands as a ‘frayed one’ but admit that ‘the volume of port throughput can have a positive influence on local development.’ Tiesnese (2012) laments that the current pressure on the world’s ports to increase their capacity through more efficient and less labour-intensive equipment has reduced the positive impacts ports usually had on their local settlements, and adds that in most cases the bond between port and town or city “has become considerably weaker, witnessing a deterioration of the symbiosis between port and its city” (Tiesnese, 2012: 2).

Port–industrial complexes: Operation Phakisa

The development of port–industrial complexes were an essential feature of economically advanced and rapidly industrialising economies in the 1960s and 1970s (Dunford and Yeung, 2011). Maritime industrial development areas (MIDAs) resulted from an integration of developments in industries producing intermediate goods, such as steel and chemicals, and a restructuring of maritime transport and seaport systems on the one hand, and state strategies supporting national champions and (often) for the development of economically disadvantaged areas, on the other (The Presidency, 2011). The degree of diversification and long-term employment creation were often limited in these MIDAs, some zones remaining largely mono-industrial. Forty years later following the discovery of oil and gas on the Namibian and Angolan coastlines the South African government has recognised the economic potential of its ocean areas (or blue economy)² and that the country’s major ports can be tapped to support regional development through similar industrial development interventions. South Africa is ideally positioned to serve the East-West cargo traffic and the booming African offshore oil and gas industry. Operation Phakisa was announced in 2014 to exploit and stimulate the country’s blue economy (The Presidency, 2014). The priority sectors in Operation Phakisa are marine transport and manufacturing activities (coastal shipping, trans-shipment, boat building, repair and refurbishment); offshore oil and gas exploration; aquaculture and marine protection services; and ocean governance (Jacka, 2015; Van Wyk, 2015).

According to Willem Roux – Saldanha Bay Port manager – 120 oil rigs are towed past South Africa’s coast every year and we know if we do not use this opportunity to capture this market now, other ports in the southern hemisphere will gear themselves to capture it (SouthAfrica.info, 2015). Saldanha Bay Port is a focal point in an operation with a R9.65 billion investment in infrastructure projects aimed at enhancing the deep-water port’s ability to service the offshore oil and gas industry (SouthAfrica.info, 2015). Two specific projects have been listed and endorsed for Saldanha Bay Port. First, construction of Berth 205, a deep-water berth to accommodate semi-submersible rigs and large drill ships; and second, the erection of a jetty to enable new building facilities, accommodate structures such as a floating dock or heavy lift to allow maintenance and repairs. The project is planned to be completed by January 2018. The strategy will result in specialised infrastructure development as well as job creation. During the construction phase 760 jobs will be created, and some 3400 permanent direct jobs when the new infrastructure is established and 13,200 indirect jobs (Roux, personal communication, March 2015). The development of port industries plays a vital role in the establishment and the sustaining of port–town relationships and hinterland connections.

The co-evolution of Saldanha Bay Port and its town (hinterland)

For more than a century the development of Saldanha Bay Port and it’s hinterland were considered regionally significant (Zwemmer and Van’t Hoff, 1983) but despite a number of plans, policy mechanisms and financial incentives having been initiated over the last three decades the anticipated growth of Saldanha town and its hinterland have not materialised to the degree anticipated (Bek et al., 2004; Saldanha Bay Municipality, 2009; Welman and Ferreira, 2014). The present state of regional development in the Saldanha Bay region reflects strong historical and government-led influences.

Spatial evolution of Saldanha Bay Port, Saldanha Bay town and the regional transport network

Both economic and political factors have always played important roles in the genesis and development of the Saldanha Bay Port, the establishment of the urban settlement and the transport network of the West Coast Region. Pre-1938, the harbour development consisted of small fishing and military quays adjacent to the Saldanha town centre (Van der Waag, 2005). This analysis focuses on the spatial evolution of the port, town and transport networks in the immediate hinterland of Saldanha Town, since 1938.

Visualisation and analysis of the spatial evolution were done by abstracting certain features from aerial photographs (nodes, networks and developed spaces) to create four snapshots of the study area over the last 70 years (Figure 1a–d). Figure 1(a) reveals a small human settlement and limited road system servicing the local economy based on dryland agriculture and commercial fishing in 1938. By 1942 the military activities at Saldanha had expanded and the town’s meagre water supplies led to the Union Defense Force assisting in the construction of the Berg River-Saldanha Bay water pipeline during 1942 and 1943 (Visser et al., 2008). After the Second World War Saldanha experienced an increase in population numbers and the construction of many new houses (Visser and Monama, 2008). The “value of existing residential property has increased three-fold and plots fetched up to ten times their pre-war prices” in the mid-1950s (Silverman, 1956: 81). The built-up areas were concentrated close to the Saldanha Bay Canning plant. The availability of fresh water stimulated the expansion of the fish-processing plants, the establishment of small-business activities in the central business district (CBD) and the reopening of Donkergat Whaling Station (1947) with its lucrative whale-oil business in the post-war era. By 1960 (Figure 1b) the presence of the South African military had expanded, more secondary roads had been added and a railway line had connected certain institutions (Saldanha Naval Gymnasium and South African Military Academy) with the scattered quays in the bay. The expansion of the railway network to the port has set the scene for the establishment of Sea Harvest Fishing concern in Saldanha in 1964. Further highlights in the development of the infrastructural base of the region (Table 1) were the three-kilometre long artificial breakwater linking Marcus Island to the mainland (1973); the Sishen-Saldanha railway line (1974) (which linked the port to iron ore mines 1000 km inland); and the extension and deepening of the port (1976). These developments not only laid the foundation for industrial development in the region but also created industrial-path dependence (Welman and Ferreira, 2014). By 1979 (Figure 1c) the town and port had expanded spatially. Residential areas had been added and the industrial harbour infrastructure augmented by a general cargo quay, causeway and floating oil jetties. Figure 1(d) illustrates the expanded physical spaces of the port and town development in 2010, informal settlement areas have appeared for the first time and the back-of-port industrial developments have become more prominent.

Figure 1.

Co-evolution of Saldana Bay town and its port (Source: Authors).

Table 1.

Major infrastructural and industrial developments in the Saldanha Bay Region since 1973.

Date	Construction and establishment	Date	Construction and establishment
1973	3-km artificial breakwater linking Marcus Island to the mainland of Saldanha Bay town	1994	Tronox (mining and beneficiation heavy minerals to produce titanium dioxide feedstock) – previously known as Namakwa Sands
1974	Sishen-Saldanha railway line	1997–1998	Extensions to multipurpose terminal
1974–1976	Iron-ore jetty	1998	Saldanha-Steel (ArcelorMittal)
1975–1976	Oil jetty (facilities for handling oil imports)	1999	Duferco (steel coils)
1976	Extension and deepening of the harbour	2014	Industrial Development Zone
1980	Multipurpose cargo terminal added to iron-ore jetty (facilities for handling high-value lead and copper concentrates)	2015–2018	Oil and Gas Service Station

Source: Authors.

In 2012 part of the region was proclaimed as an IDZ, one of the group of new spatial interventions launched by the South African government (Nel and Rogerson, 2013, 2014). Figure 2 illustrates the location of the IDZ, its major industrial institutions and the proposed port developments to serve as infrastructure for the proposed land based Oil and Gas Service Centre.

Figure 2.

Saldanha Bay town and hinterland, the proposed IDZ (short-, medium-, and long-term time frame) and Oil and Gas Service Centres. Source: Welman and Ferreira (2014: 224).

Although the Saldanha Bay region has been on the national development agenda for the past 40 years, an inevitable question arises: How have these expansions of port infrastructure benefited the wider Saldanha Bay community? Since 1976, the Saldanha Bay Port has been heavily dependent on the export of bulk cargo, especially iron ore. The Port comprised an iron ore export terminal and oil terminal for imports of crude oil and a multipurpose terminal dedicated to handling various other minerals and imported commodities (Transnet National Ports Authority, 2014). Figure 3 charts the 20-year growth in the port’s volume of cargo from 20 million metric tons (1994) to 54 million metric tons (2014). The proposed provision of a third iron ore loading facility and associated infrastructure in Saldanha Bay Port will increase the capacity to export iron ore (from 60 to 90 million metric tons per year) and this re-emphasises the port’s dependency on the export of primary commodities. The declining price of iron ore over the past four years (Figure 4) may detrimentally affect the local economy in future. The port is also responsible for imports of about 4 million metric tons of crude oil per annum (Transnet, 2013).

Figure 3.

Exports of iron ore from the Transnet Port Terminal (TPT), 1994–2014.

Figure 4.

Iron ore price 1993–2015 (authors own production).

Employment, job-seekers and socio-economic context of Saldanha Bay Region

In 1994 Transnet Port Terminal (TPT) employed 200 permanent staff members and by 2014 the number had trebled to 600. This expansion in job numbers can be directly linked to the diversification of infrastructure in the harbour and to substantial increases in the volumes of bulk and break-of-bulk cargo. Over the past 40 years the industrial port’s specialised infrastructure has been augmented, the port surface area has been extended and the volume of cargo handled has grown substantially. Unfortunately, all this port related proliferation has done little to positively affect the socio-economic transformation of the various Saldanha Bay communities. Moreover, the presence of the Port and its associated industrial activities has impacted negatively on the state of the natural environment of the Saldanha Bay (Clark et al., 2012) however this issue is beyond the scope of this paper.

To help unravel the local socio-economic context it is necessary to retrace the flow of workers to the Saldanha Bay region since the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1980, following the earmarking of Saldanha Bay region as an industrial development node and the construction of the Sishen-Saldanha railway line, the population in the Vredenburg magisterial district³ nearly doubled. This increase in population reflects the perceived attraction of industrialisation in the Vredenburg-Saldanha region in the 1970s and represented a first wave of job-seekers to the region. With the construction of Saldanha Steel (pre-1998), a second wave occurred where people arrived with the hope of finding jobs in the steel industry. During this phase Saldanha Steel employed more than 3,000 people but once construction was completed only 750 remained in service. According to Gilbert and Lambert (2010) influxes of migrants normally bring new human resources, competences and demand but this was not the case with many unskilled job-seekers arriving from the rural Eastern Cape Province in the Saldanha Bay region (Driver et al., 1993). Latterly, Saldanha Bay has experienced a dramatic increase in population numbers – (from 16,820 in 1996 to 28,850 (a 42% increase) in 2011); the proportion of households living in informal dwellings increased from 16% in 1996 to 25% in 2011; and the proportion of unemployed rose from 15% to 25% over the intercensal period (Stats SA, 2011). This growth in population numbers without the concomitant growth in the number of available jobs has caused an escalation in the growth of informal housing in Saldanha since 1996 and the number of households qualifying for the provision of indigent services. The overall dependency levels of the community have increased. With 90% of households in Saldanha Bay living on R38,400 or less (approximately £2,000) per annum (low-income category), the majority of inhabitants are unable or barely able to meet their basic needs and a large proportion is reliant on government grants (child-support grant, old-age pension, disability grant) and/or indigent household grants with the municipality providing free basic services. The total number of indigent households in the Saldanha Bay Municipal (SBM) area almost doubled, from 3,870 in July 2007 to 7,580 in March 2015 (an increase of 49%). Saldanha Bay’s indigent households (2,190) represent 29% of the total number of indigent households in the SBM area. It is noteworthy that there is only a small middle class (less than 10% of the households) and less than one per cent (0.45% of households) belongs to the affluent socio-economic group (Saldanha Bay IDZ, 2011).

Cooperation between the port and town

Institutionally the Port (Transnet) and the SBM have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to act according to the principles of cooperative governance and intergovernmental relations. A management and projects committee is chaired jointly by the Port Manager and the Municipal Manager. This committee meets four times a year. According to a senior manager of SBM the relationship with the Saldanha division of Transnet Ports Authority (TPA) is confronted by hierarchical decision-making structures in which the ‘national headquarters’ has the final say. “Sometimes we reached agreement in our ‘backyard’ but after three months we hear that our consensus decisions were declined by the Transnet National Ports Authority” (Municipality manager, personal communication, March 2015). This causes a disconnection between these two major institutions. A further stumbling block in building ‘institutional thickness’⁴ between these institutions is the low level of discussion, the lack of trust and the lack of real transparency regarding the TPA’s short-, medium- and long-term plans for Saldanha Bay Port. Regarding Operation Phakisa the SMB municipal manager was asked if the SBM is ready to cater for a third wave of migrants to Saldanha and to provide services for all the job-seekers to the envisaged Oil-Gas Service Sector. His response was: “We cannot plan for the unprecedented rush of unskilled migrants to Saldanha and a lack of reliable data prohibited proper planning” (Municipal manager, personal communication, 14 April 2015).

Transnet’s representative, Willem Roux (Saldanha Port Manager), considers privatisation to be one of the greatest challenges for Saldanha Bay Port. According to him success implies sharing the risk that development brings with private partners. In this regard Transnet National Port Authority (TNPA) has failed to privatise to any great extent and TNPA has not done enough to empower the local community by assisting in appropriate skills development or to foster the diversification of the local economy (Roux, personal communication, March 2015). Both the municipality and the TNPA acknowledge and accept the backlog in skills development and support the idea that all the major institutions in Saldanha Bay must collaborate to enhance the development of the Saldanha town and region. For the latter to be realised it is essential that there is political stability in the SBM, ‘We must prevent the stop-start-strategy whereby the change in staff in the SBM – as the result of a new political party controlling the municipality – will dampen future development’ (Roux, personal communication, March 2015). The port has the potential to accelerate growth and development in the local economy but the empty promises of the past are of great concern to Transnet. Other disturbing factors are the slow pace of development in the back-of-port area and the worldwide drop in the price of iron.⁵ Roux has emphasised that Saldanha Bay Port belongs to the local community and it is of ‘paramount importance of how we will deal with the issue of port diversification to contribute more positively to the development of our communities’ (Roux, personal communication, March 2015). He also believes a successful prospect lies in a two-port economy, with Cape Town and Saldanha working together (Roux, personal communication, March 2015).

Conclusions and recommendations

This paper has examined the co-evolution of the port, the town and hinterland of Saldanha since 1938. The port–city evolution of Saldanha Bay has been gradual and largely influenced by regional factors and national strategies. Port development has responded to certain national decision-making processes, and the infrastructure had to adjust to changes in the local, regional and global contexts. All these changes have also impacted the port–city interface as well as its hinterland. Using Hall’s (2002) view of the three different roles of a port – infrastructure, cargo, trade hub – one sees Saldanha Bay Port as a concentration of infrastructure purposely assembled to export iron ore and to import oil and gas. The traffic types and services rendered by Saldanha Bay Port do not necessarily have positive effects on further port and regional performance, although the linkages with the proposed adjacent IDZ have potential in this regard. Few formal and informal linkages between port activity and other local economic activities exist. Policymakers have not taken into account the links with local industries. Saldanha local authority is almost toothless to manipulate such linkages to the benefit of local enterprises. Saldanha Port has paid approximately R 62 million (£3 million) for the provision of electricity, water and taxes to the Local Municipality in 2014/2015 (Brink, personal communication August, 2015) – a meagre drop in the ocean – when taking in consideration the large land and sea surface area of 19,300 hectares that it occupies at a prime waterfront location. The port contributes to the economic base of the local economy but in terms of its size and negative externalities (which are beyond the scope of this paper) the benefits for the local economy are limited. From as early as 2018, the present role of Saldanha Bay Port will be extended to include the only purpose-built Oil and Gas Service Station⁶ on the west coast of Africa. That’s said, reviving of local economies through attracting new cargo flows might not always be a relevant option if policymakers fail to take into account the links with local industries.

This case study has shown that the port and town have, to certain extent, become disconnected since the establishment of the Saldanha-Sishen railway and the iron-ore jetty (1974 to 1976) and also that most of the port activities have evolved away from the CBD of Saldanha and further into the bay – as an example of enclave type of development. Although Saldanha Bay Port is functioning well, it is not evident that the port will spontaneously have strong positive impacts on port–town relationship and hinterland connections. Despite growth in industrialisation, the deepening of the port and the improvement of port infrastructures, the socio-economic context of Saldanha Bay and the Greater Saldanha Bay region have deteriorated since the mid-1990s. Saldanha town appears to be a passive receiver of both new infrastructure and flows of migrants. Moreover, it is exposed to decisions made in the higher echelons of government without due respect to the local contexts of Saldanha Bay and its residents. The image of Saldanha Bay, already tainted by the production of steel and the ever-present red dust of the iron ore export activities, is destined to become further immersed in its ‘industrial’ appearance by servicing the oil rigs of Southern Africa’s west coast.

The future of the local economy of Saldanha Bay area lies in the re-establishment of its connection with its port, the envisaged new economic activities linked to the Oil and Gas Service Station and the potential establishment of a port-town development authority that will replace the inadequate institutional framework that currently exists. The sole purpose of this authority should not be to resolve conflicts of interest but to work towards the prosperity of the local Saldanha economy. Saldanha Bay can also take a lesson from how two regional centres Aberdeen (Scotland) and Stavanger (Norway) have tapped in to the offshore oil and gas industry development of the North Sea oil province (Hatakenaka et al., 2011). In both these cases a long-term view were taken, where the emphasis was on innovation systems and career development of their citizens. Here the role of education, training and development of human capital became paramount as a first priority and to think beyond the days of oil exploitation. The main actors (public and private) in Saldanha Bay region have to work together to build resilience among local community members where advanced skills can enable them to move to other job opportunities if their current jobs disappear (as a result of dwindling fish stocks, over production of steel, over exploitation of oil). The managers of Saldanha Bay Port should also learn from those other world ports (Merk and Comtois, 2012) where extensive external communication strategies were followed to sustain local support for their port functions. An essential element in this regard is access to and transparency of port information, the provision of annual reports and the flow of the communication about future development plans. There is a need for research on the privatisation of ports in South Africa and the role of ports in the local economies of cities and regions in the South. Hopefully the outcome of this research will assist in finding some solutions for the local port–town dilemmas in the Saldanha Bay region.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Thanks to referees for helpful inputs on earlier versions of the paper. Usual disclaimers apply.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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