South Africa to shut ports for Y2K changeover
By Ellis Mnyandu

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 23 (Reuters) - South Africa's ports
authority Portnet said on Friday it was spending up to 50
million rand ($8.3 million) to configure its infrastructure
to stave off possible glitches related to the Y2K computer
bug.

Portnet's Y2K Project Manager Dennis Trudgeon told Reuters
it had also decided to shut South Africa's seven harbours
for 12 hours during the millennium changeover as a safety
precaution.

He said all the harbours, including that of Durban on the
Indian Ocean, would close at 1600 GMT on December 31, and
reopen for business at 0400 GMT on January 1, 2000.

South African ports normally stay open around the clock.

"Our Y2K programme is in quite advanced stages and we're
now finalising the verification of our critical systems,"
Trudgeon said in a telephone interview from Durban --
Africa's busiest harbour.

"The work we've done up to now puts us in a confident
position about the business (continuity) plans we've put at
all ports," Trudgeon added.

He said Portnet's Y2K project had begun in October 1997 and
entailed the introduction of a new millennium-compliant
container handling system in Durban, East London, Port
Elizabeth and Cape Town harbours this year.

"A large portion of the potential Y2K problems identified
have been avoided by the implementation of the new
Y2K-compliant Cosmos computerised logistics system at the
ports and the cargo handling situation has improved
significantly," Trudgeon said.

Cosmos, built in Belgium and costing more than 30 million
rand, replaces a 25-year-old manual cargo tracking system.
It requires the use of hand-held computer tracking
terminals instead of radio-controlled monitoring.

The port of Durban handles an average of about 3,000
containers a day and is the largest conduit for
containerised cargo in southern Africa. For shippers,
Portnet has put up a website to answer queries relating to
its Y2K preparedness. Its address is:
www.portnet.co.za/year2000.
(1$=6.06)
((Johannesburg newsroom, +27-11-775-3131, fax
+27-11-775-3132, newsroom@reuters.co.za))
REUTERS  1132 230999 GMT