Sugar-caning for trucker after 34-tonne load turns into sweet nothing

Thirty-four tonnes of sugar cannot easily turn into sweet nothing, but after four years and two court cases no-one has a better idea about what has happened to it.

It's not too late, though. A Cape Town high court order this week said that if a trucking company can prove what happened to the sugar, it can still claim R354,000 compensation from whoever was responsible for losing it.

In the meantime, Judge Patrick Gamble overturned the decision of the Somerset West regional court that a transport subcontractor must pay the money to the company that employed it.

The white sugar vanished on a journey from Durban to the Twizza cooldrink factory in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, in 2017. Far more complicated than the 650km route it covered was the maze of companies with a stake in the transport arrangements.

The journey was undertaken by a second subcontractor, Gienro Solutions, which was employed by the first, Tradevest Logistics, which in turn had been subcontracted to transport the sugar by Banzi Trade.

Banzi had contracted with Maydon Wharf Port Terminals, which bagged the sugar and stored it on behalf of commodity broker Traxys Africa Trading, which imported the consignment from a refinery in the United Arab Emirates.

Gamble said: “The facts, which are somewhat intricate but largely not controversial, give some insight into how the local freight industry generally operates.

“It appears ... it is not uncommon in that industry for a contracting party to subcontract (and thereby abrogate its rights and responsibilities) to another party in the industry and even for the latter mentioned party to subcontract its obligations further.

“When all was said and done in the witness box, Tradevest’s case was that the sugar had been collected from Maydon Wharf Port Terminals by Gienro and had indeed been delivered to Twizza.”

However, Twizza procurement boss Kurt Potgieter said the sugar never arrived, and Gamble said this gave rise to the most puzzling aspect of the affair.

“One would have expected that Twizza would have anxiously been asking questions almost immediately because it would have had an unfilled space in its warehouse and a possible disruption to its production line,” he said.

“Also, the disappearance of such a large load (whether through theft or a hijacking) would no doubt have merited the attention of the police.”

Gamble said in the absence of the sugar, or any evidence about what happened to it and under whose watch, he could not conclude that Banzi had suffered any loss that meant Tradevest should pay it compensation.

“There has been no unequivocal admission of its liability to Maydon Wharf Port Terminals in respect of the allegedly lost load of sugar,” he said.

“As matters presently stand, the debt owing to Maydon Wharf Port Terminals appears to have prescribed.

"[And] there is the concern that if Banzi recovers the cost of the load of sugar from Tradevest and MFT fails to take further steps, Banzi will not only have not suffered any damages but will in fact have been enriched.

“It follows that Banzi has not adduced sufficient evidence to sustain the damages it claims to have suffered.”

However, because there was “a vague prospect that it may yet be able to conclusively establish non-delivery”, it would be in the interests of justice to allow Banzi to do so by continuing its investigation.

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