Ongoing investment, development and monitoring of corridors at a far more speedy pace is essential if southern Africa is to grow intra-regional trade.According to Barbara Mommen, an independent consultant at Coalescence, it took 18 years of lobbying to get the Lebombo Ressano Garcia border to operate 24 hours a day. “While the extended operations are welcomed, the reality is we have to move much faster than this if we are to grow trade on our corridors.”She said the case for development and investment was clear, but monitoring of the N4 corridor had proven to be just as valuable.“It was the key factor that moved us beyond assumption,” she said at a recent Transport Forum. “We now know what we know. We are no longer making assumptions from bits of data. This is critical for corridor development. On the Maputo Corridor, we certainly have had good cooperation, investment and development. What the monitoring through the Transpor t Management System did, however, was that it highlighted where our focus needs to be, but at the same time it holds all the stakeholders accountable.”Furthermore, the data now gathered on the corridor is fed through to politicians and other governmental role players responsible for making up policy and legislation around the supply chain. “This has ensured far more practical policies that can be implemented and that really make a difference, rather than just a process of consultation between the public and private sector as part of a ticking-the-box exercise.”Mommen said corridors also needed to be monitored continuously. “Monitoring of supply chains and the collection of data on corridor performance also allows us to draw comparisons between corridors and, of course, to deliver efficiency and operational improvements.”She said the Maputo Corridor had continued to attract investment over the years and had proven to be a successful alternative for South African exporters. While predominantly considered for bulk cargoes such as ferrochrome and ore, the corridor has also made a comeback in citrus in light of the ongoing woes at the Port of Durban. “This year 87 million cartons of citrus were exported out of Maputo. This is expected to be ramped up to 110m cartons next year.”She attributed the success of the corridor to the investment in infrastructure. “We have good road and rail infrastructure, although urgent investment in rail capacity is needed – specifically because the corridor was never developed to carry this amount of traffic on road.”Mommen said investment in corridor ports was just as important. The Port of Maputo has invested some $850m to date and continues to upgrade and extend its facilities.
