'Absurd' regulations milk SA transporters

Ongoing changes to legislation, systems and procedures – particularly in Zimbabwe and Zambia – remain the biggest challenges to cross-border operators, according to Gavin Kelly, spokesman for the Road Freight Association. “The states to the north of South Africa – especially Zimbabwe and Zambia – are imposing regulations on our transporters all the time, irrespective of the fact that those trucks are not registered there,” said Kelly. “There are new fees to be paid for new regulations and it is starting to impact dramatically on costs. The new regulations are implemented with very little warning resulting in massive penalties and fines having to be paid while in some cases the trucks are impounded.” He said many of the new standards and regulations being implemented were not in line with SADC protocols. “There seems to be a total disregard for SADC’s call for harmonisation. For a long time we have had a situation where our operators are fined for not being compliant with this or that regulation, but the situation is slowly getting out of hand and now becoming a real issue.” He said with many South Africans not wanting their equipment impounded they were making the payments to officials because it was cheaper than trying to get a truck out of the country. “Many of the regulations are absurd and we are not able to meet them. In Zambia, for instance, they have now introduced a standard for fuel tankers that we are expected to comply with. It is clearly an old South African standard and in many cases the tankers going into the country won’t comply with that old standard any more because they are now compliant with the newer versions meaning one will have to pay.” Kelly said fines were being handed out for anything and everything. CAPTION Transporters are facing fines for anything and everything.