Groundbreaking MOU

A ground breaking Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, eThekwini Municipality and Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) yesterday, 17 November 2015, to initiate a partnership between the parties to share knowledge and expertise on sustainable industrial development.

The Port of Durban would be the starting point of the knowledge sharing agreement.

The signing ceremony took place at Tirbune Hall, Newtown in Johannesburg during the House of the Future Conference which was attended by the Minister of Small Business Development Lindiwe Zulu, the Prime Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte, Netherlands Ambassador to South Africa Marisa Gerads, the Speaker of eThekwini Municipality Councillor Logie Naidoo and the Head of eThekwini Municipality Health Unit Nomakhosi Gxagxisa.

The House of the Future is a five day event aimed at stimulating and celebrating cooperation between South Africa and the Netherlands within five key sectors which are agri-food horticulture, energy, logistics, water and health.

Naidoo said the eThekwini/Netherlands MOU’s first area of focus will be air quality management.

“The Kingdom of the Netherlands has the Port of Rotterdam which is the largest port in Europe. Our City has the largest port in Africa and the signing of this MOU will help us learn from them about best practices on the sustainable industrial development of our port especially in matters relating to air quality management,” Naidoo said.

As a result of the partnership the Netherlands has donated new air monitoring instruments commonly called e-Nose to both eThekwini Municipality and the TNPA.

The e-Nose is a new innovation that detects changes in the air composition and will allow the City’s Environmental Health Department to investigate the cause starting from where the e-Nose is located.

“We are using these e-Noses for a trial run with the aim of making an important contribution to a healthy, safe and attractive port environment. The e-Nose is going to complement the existing City’s air quality monitoring network,” Naidoo said.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands Ambassador to South Africa Marisa Gerads said the signing of the MOU will see eThekwini Municipality and the Netherland’s Environmental Protection Agency and Common Invent working together on the sustainable industrial development of the Port of Durban.