Chairperson, before I start, I just want to say that the DA is for the Bill, but I just want to add something also.
The Bill before this House has been 39 years in the making and South Africa first became party to the international convention in 1972, its subsequent accession in June 1982 and the numerous amendments since then. However, failure to implement this convention has resulted in South Africa not meeting its obligations as a contracting party for all these years.
One wonders what took us so long and what we have learnt from the convention in all this time. The convention also recognises this very aspect of safety in its objectives that contracting parties, and I quote:
... need to maintain a high level of safety of human life in the handling, stacking and transporting of containers ...
For this to happen we need to know the weight of the container. If we fail to meet this obligation I believe that we will also have failed in both recognising the convention and attempting to deal with it in the Bill.
The department must do further research into the matter and consider the weighing of containers as a mandatory requirement for containers entering and leaving our ports. Not doing so would be tantamount to being far behind in modern thinking regarding container handling and stacking. The introduction of high cube containers is another aspect which needs to be urgently addressed. I thank you.