|
 |
Contents |
|
|
| Department of forestry supplies logs to plug gap |
|
2005/9/12
Pretoria - The department of water affairs and forestry has released 40 000m3 of timber from its own operation to alleviate a shortage that has drastically affected the sawmilling industry countrywide.
Director-general Mike Muller announced this at a consultative meeting this week with various sawmilling stakeholders and representatives of the public enterprise department and Safcol, the forestry parastatal, to address challenges related to the allocation of timber to the sawmilling sector.
This follows complaints by small sawmillers and apparent threats by workers at small sawmills in Mpumalanga to set fire to forests owned by Komatiland Forests, the parastatal whose privatisation was prohibited by the competition commission, over its decision to stop supplying these sawmills with logs.
Water affairs and forestry minister Buyelwa Sonjica last month assured sawmillers that the department would intervene to alleviate the immediate problem.
Muller said the shortage of timber was not exclusive to South Africa and was a growing challenge in other areas.
With regard to complaints about timber allocation in Mpumalanga, Muller said it was agreed that Safcol/ Komatiland Forests would be asked to respond to the concerns raised by the sawmillers within the next 10 days.
Muller undertook to convene a meeting where this could be done.
Manuel Ferreirinha, the chairman of an informal grouping of 26 sawmillers affected by Komatiland Forests' decision to cease supplying them with logs, said on Wednesday that the meeting was "pretty fruitful" but that nothing had been resolved. Another meeting was scheduled for the end of this month.
Ferreirinha said they still had to establish where the logs released by the department were situated, because their location would not suit most sawmillers in Mpumalanga.
He emphasised that the small sawmillers understood that there was a shortage of logs but were extremely critical of the way Komatiland Forests had conducted itself by failing to give sawmillers "fair warning" and about changes to the way of tendering.
"That is the major problem. We're not protesting about the shortage of logs but the way Komatiland Forests has handled the situation. They needed to cushion us. A lot of millers have invested a lot of money in equipment and have liabilities but were given three days' notice and could not plan because it is a specialised process," he said.
Kobus Breed, Komatiland Forests' chief executive, said last month Komatiland Forests had marketed all its uncommitted timber, which would be processed in the areas in which it did its marketing, and it had not exported one log.
Breed stressed that a fair administrative process was followed in allocating the uncommitted timber and that giving these sawmillers logs would have resulted in other sawmills closing or shedding jobs.
Breed added that the "soft landing" for the industry referred to in the meeting with sawmillers on June 13 this year had not meant sawmillers would be looked after on a pro rata basis.
|
| Source:http://www.businessreport.co.za |
|
|
