South Africa’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport has expressed satisfaction with the work of the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA), even though maritime incidents are rising due to increased ship traffic around South Africa.

“The maritime space is very important for economic emancipation, but also for moving, generally, the economy of the country…emerging from this meeting with SAMSA, we are pleased and happy with the work that they are currently doing, even as there are areas that they must improve on, especially those relating to contracts management, and transformation,” Transport Committee chairperson Selelo David Selamolelo said during a scheduled oversight visit of and meeting with the entity’s management leadership on 12 October in Cape Town.

The meeting took place at SAMSA’s Cape Town based Centre for Sea Watch & Response (incorporating the Maritime Rescue Coordinating Centre) and which in 2024 has had to deal with a significantly higher number of maritime incidents compared with recent years, involving both transnational cargo vessels traversing across South Africa’s three oceans along a 3 200 km coastline, as well as commercial fishing vessels; and from some of which incidents, in both categories, regrettably, life and property were lost at sea.

Regarding cargo vessels, incidents in the 2024 calendar year mostly involved ships losing containers at sea – with one eventually grounded on the west coast – all reportedly due to southern Africa’s adverse weather conditions this year. Among some of the cargo vessels’ incidents, in some instances, loss of crew members overboard were reported.

On the other hand, incidents related to commercial fishing vessels also involved no less than four of these, through either grounding (one in January in South Africa’s south east coast) or sinking (three in South Africa’s south west coast area over the last few months – with one resulting in a loss of 11 seafarers).

The spate of maritime incidents in South Africa’s oceans this year is increasingly becoming a concern even at highest government level. Five days prior to the Portfolio Committee on Transport’s oversight meeting with SAMSA management leadership, deputy Minister of Transport, Mkhuleko Hlengwa held a special meeting with SAMSA’s executive management, also in Cape Town.

This was for a briefing on among other issues, the progress being achieved in the salvage of the wreck of a general cargo ship, the MV Ultra Galaxy, that’s currently underway on South Africa’s west coast since its grounding in early July.

Selamolelo said the committee was not merely pleased and happy with SAMSA’s performance for the period under review, but also pledged the committee’s full support for the resourcing of the country’s maritime safety authority.

He said: “Coming out of this meeting is that we, as the Portfolio Committee on Transport, may have to find a way to give more support in terms of resources to SAMSA because they are doing a lot of work in terms of ensuring safety in our waters.”

South Africa is seeing a growing number of ships travelling around its coastline due to the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. This is placing further pressure on SAMSA to be able to respond to incidents, which are becoming more frequent as the volume of sea traffic increases.

The South African Search and Rescue (SASAR) organisation warned in its latest annual report that a lack of available assets, including South African Air Force (SAAF) aircraft for search and rescue (SAR) operations “is a huge challenge.”

The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), which is hosted by the South Africa Maritime Safety Authority on behalf of the Department of Transport in Cape Town, was unable to effectively provide the required maritime SAR service as stipulated in accordance with its mandate. The annual report indicated it is due to the “unavailability of resources and assets from the SASAR Manual Signatories such as the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and having to rely on the availability of the Merchant Fleet vessels’ SAR operations.”

During the 2023/24 reporting period (April 2023 through March 2024), the MRCC responded to 138 SAR incidents, with 168 lives saved during the period. However, during the reporting period 20 lives were lost. The MRCC further assisted in connecting vessels to local Telemedical Services and coordinated the evacuation of 112 medevac (medical evacuation) operations for crew and passengers from vessels offshore to local hospitals.