THE Durban Chamber of Commerce has asked the SA Chamber of Business (Sacob) to state its position on the economic viability of the state-led Coega industrial development zone and the port of Ngqura.

This comes after Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin slammed the Durban chamber for questioning the viability of the Coega project.

Erwin urged the chamber to "back off" as government was convinced that the Eastern Cape would be the future heartland of SA's economy.

Durban chamber CEO Jeya Wilson said: "It was not our intention to be embroiled in any sort of confrontation on the matter."

Wilson said Durban was not targeting Port Elizabeth and its chamber, but that the development of Coega was a national issue which Sacob had to take up.

Public Service Accountability Monitor director Colm Allan said yesterday Erwin's outburst was uncalled for.

"The fact that the Coega project costs about R4,56bn of public funds is hardly what anyone can refer to as petty," Allan said.

He called on the trade and industry department to consider seriously a report by Maritime Education and Research Information Technology (Merit) on Coega and the intended port. The report was published in July.

Allan said the construction of the port was not based on the findings of the Merit report because the report came out five months after construction on the port started in February 2001.

"Saki Macozoma announced Portnet's decision to fund the construction in April 2000 more than a year before the publication of the report. So clearly the decision was political," he said. Allan said the Merit report stated that there could be no industrial development zone at Coega without a port.

He said if the Coega project did not go ahead, this would amount to an acknowledgement by government that it had misrepresented the benefits of the arms deal.

"This would leave the public to ponder the issue of who exactly has benefited from the arms deal," he said.  

With acknowledgment to Business Day and Patrick Wadula.