Angola specialist extends into DRC

WITH A 13-year track record in the movement of cargo by road into southern Angola, Gauteng-based Castle Transport has extended its route network into the DRC. Run by husband and wife team Gerrie and Ronel Coetzee, the company sends 37 loads by road a month to Angola and 35 to the DRC. “Long gone are the days of armed escorts and pilfering,” says MD Gerrie Coetzee. The challenges the company faces have changed dramatically over the years. "Instead of random fighting troops and the threat of hold-ups, today the company’s drivers contend with hazardous roads and terrain, bureaucracy and graft at border posts and by district officials,” says Coetzee. “Our team has sorted out most of the hazards by getting to know the right people and insisting on greater efficiency at border posts.” Among the challenging projects undertaken on its 3 700km routes to Angola via Namibia, or the more troublesome Trans-Kalahari route through Botswana, was the supervision and transporting of 90 super-link loads to Lubango and Luanda last year. This included the movement of 16 giant fermentation vats – each 17m long and 4.6m in diameter – from the former Vivo brewery in Midrand up the zigzag Leba pass in southern Angola. “Once you reach Angola, the first 350km takes two days, which gives you a sense of the condition of the roads.” In Angola drivers encounter three or four stops per journey for documentation checks, he added.