a) The office dealing with airfreight, amongst other functions, is the Directorate: Aviation Industry Development and Airfreight. The Sub-Directorate: Civil Aviation Freight Logistics specifically has the functional responsibility to lead and provide strategic support for the management of civil airfreight logistics.
b) The Sub-Directorate: Civil Aviation Freight Logistics has two incumbents occupying the funded positions of Deputy and Assistant Directors. The position of the Director remains vacant. The designations of the officials within the Sub-Directorate: Civil Aviation Freight Logistics are Deputy Director: Civil Aviation Freight Logistics and Assistant Director: Civil Aviation Freight Logistics. In terms of the agreed upon and signed Job Descriptions, the functions enumerated below are their key areas of responsibilities:
c) The Sub-Directorate became fully operational as from 2015/16 financial year (FY) onwards following the appointment of the Deputy Director. Subsequent Business Plans of the Department of Transport featured the following targets, which were / are being carried out:
d) The role of the Department of Transport in airfreight development is to champion the vision set forth in the National Freight Logistics Strategy (NFLS). Its integral objective is on reducing the cost of doing business in South Africa through seamless movement of goods and services (for an example the cost of logistics is currently estimated at approximately 15% of the GDP compared to 8% international best practice).
Furthermore, the NFLS identified strategic intervention areas across all modes wherein priority attention should be focused. These are aiming at eliminating system blockages, increase (air) cargo movement capacity and improve service delivery in order to increase commodity throughput, growing the sub-sector while reducing transaction costs.
Some of the NFLS identified strategic interventions designed to turning around airfreight have been translated into action that is currently unfolding – please refer to point (c) above. In order to ensure a holistic approach, the DOT interfaces on a regular basis with government Departments and the industry at multi stakeholder fora including the Joint Aviation Steering Committee (JASC) and the South African Region Aircraft (SARA).
e) The short, medium and long term goals of the Department of Transport relating to airfreight are:
Short term
Medium
Long term:
f) the current salary notches of the two middle and junior managers are as follows:
g) In line with the Treasury prescripts, budget is allocated to the Directorate: Aviation Industry Development and Airfreight which hosts amongst others the Sub-Directorate: Civil Aviation Freight Logistics. Over the past three financial years (FY) the breakdown of Operational Budget availed to execute all the Directorate functions including airfreight is as follows: