Transport companies have raised serious concerns over protracted delays at southern Africa’s major border posts – delays that are eroding global competitiveness and increasing cost at a time when the region can ill afford it.
Beitbridge, Chirundu, Kazangula, Kasumbalesa, Nakonde and Forbes are all at present jam-packed with trucks, resulting in huge delays for transporters. And with queues extending for kilometres on end crime is rife.
“They attacked me in daylight at around 12.30pm on my last trip, breaking the truck window,” a seasoned truck driver told FTW. “Whenever you stop they will attack you and take everything from your truck.”
Dysfunctional, rife with corruption, inefficient and slow is how transporters describe the situation. Governments say they are all working towards implementing one-stop border posts between countries – a move they maintain will ease congestion and facilitate significant volumes of increased trade. Truck drivers traversing the region’s corridors, however, say there is barely any difference between Chirundu, SADC’s flagship OSBP between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and Beitbridge which is renowned for congestion, or Kasumbalesa into the DRC. In fact, the average GPS tracking data on crossing times for the past two years at Chirundu has consistently been around 18 plus hours, proving the OSBP is not operating any more efficiently than any of the other border crossings.
At the time of writing, at the Forbes/Machipanda border post between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, the queue on the Mozambique side leading up to the border was estimated at about 15km long. At Kasumbalesa border post between Zambia and the DRC trucks were last week queuing all the way back to Chililibombwe, about 20km away on the Zambia side. Mike Fitzmaurice, CEO of the Federation of East and Southern Africa Road Transport Associations (Fesarta), said a coordinated analytical, professional and pragmatic appraisal of the entire SADC transport and trade network was urgently required to provide the basis for making the necessary changes. According to Fitzmaurice, systems and inefficiencies inherent at all SADC borders are at the heart of the problem.
Commenting on Kasumbalesa in particular, he said it had been progressively deteriorating and the situation was now untenable. Graphs from the Transport Monitoring System (TMS) confirm this. It takes anything from 40 to 60 hours to move a truck through the DRC border post to Zambia at present compared to the average 20 hours last year. There were very real challenges at the border post, explained Fitzmaurice. Operating hours are from 06:00 to 18:00 but operations only start around 9am when staff have arrived from Lubumbashi where they live. In order to catch transport home, they leave the border by 5pm latest, leaving them with around seven hours to clear 1000 trucks per day.
With no pre-clearance system drivers can only submit documents when they arrive at the border and must do so again when they cross into the DRC side.
“The driver must park at the border until there is a slot open for them to proceed to Whiski Dry Port for final clearance before delivering their load. This whole process can take four to five days, one to two days of queuing at the border and two to three days to clear the border,” said Fitzmaurice. “This process must be repeated on their return if they have a backload. “With insufficient parking to accommodate the current volumes drivers have no access to proper ablutions or running water and are subjected to terrible living conditions. There is also no security at these facilities so they are harassed by touts that demand protection money from them – and if they don't cough up they attack and rob them, stone the trucks and sometimes even threaten to burn them alive in their trucks,” said Fitzmaurice.
Drivers are harassed by touts that demand protection money from them. – Mike Fitzmaurice
