African border posts are
not for the faint-hearted,
says Washington
Muketiwa. Even more
so when you are transporting rare
sculptures, sometimes representing
an entire community’s livelihood in
your truck.
Muketiwa is responsible for
bringing artworks from Malawi,
Zambia and Zimbabwe to South
Africa from where they are
exported the world over.
“We make the trip about three
times a year, leaving from Cape
Town to Malawi and back,” he says.
He knows the route like the back
of his hand. From Cape Town they
head north through the Beitbridge
border post into Zimbabwe, then
through the Nyamapanda post
into Mozambique before going into
Malawi via the Mwanza border
post. They pick up sculptures
at Mangochi before going back
to Zimbabwe and then to the
Chirundu border post into Zambia
for pick up in Lusaka. They finally
head back to Zimbabwe for their
final collections before hitting the
road back to Cape Town again.
Depending on the efficiency
of the border posts, it can take
anything from two weeks to two
months.
“You never know,” says Muketiwa
who considers Beitbridge to be the
best functioning of all the border
posts he uses. “It may be the busiest,
but it is also the easiest.”
And the most difficult?
“Definitely Nyamapanda. The
systems are slow, it is still all done
manually and it closes at 6pm – so
your timing has to be perfect.”
And your paperwork has to be
in order, but that goes for all the
border posts.
“There are very few facilities at
these border posts where one ends
up sitting for hours – sometimes
days – waiting to be processed. It is
a tedious process that can be costly.”
CAPTION
Erick Ruvinga and Washington Muketiwa with an artwork
sculpted by Ruvinga's father, Levi.
BEST BORDER POST BEITBRIDGE
WORST BORDER POST NYAMAPANDA
Erick Ruvinga works with
Muketiwa. They import the
sculptures made by artists in the
southern African countries into
South Africa where they are sold
and exported globally.
“The duties are exceptionally high
and one can only wonder why we do
not have free trade areas in southern
Africa. There is a lot of talk of
growing intra-African trade but it is
such a difficult process at times that
it is easy to understand why people
shy away from it,” says Ruvinga.
“Governments in southern
Africa need to work far more
closely to find ways of making
it easier to move goods between
countries and to ensure there are
systems in place that speak to
each other in order to minimise
paperwork and facilitate trade.”
