Bonded road haulier adds Botswana leg

Textile specialist concentrates on Far East-sourced raw materials Jan Ludik . . . 'Textiles are our core business, but we also do a range of general cargo.' JOY ORLEK TEXTILE SPECIALIST Nelson’s Freight has extended its established roadfreight service covering Swaziland and Lesotho to include a Botswana leg. “It was a logical development,” says director Jan Ludik, who saw the first truck to Gaborone dispatched earlier this month. Nelson’s Freight is a fairly new entrant to the Gauteng forwarding arena, but has its roots in the 25-year old Lesotho Express Delivery Service run from Lesotho by owner Roy Nelson. Four years ago Nelson decided to open a Gauteng operation, which was run from a small office at the airport until Ludik joined two years ago to head up the Jet Park-based operation. The company concentrates on the road transport of raw materials shipped from the Far East to Lesotho and Swaziland, carrying return loads of finished products for export. It is fully licensed to carry bonded cargo. The services run on a daily overnight schedule using the company’s own fleet of 3 ton and 2 ton bakkies. “Textiles are our core business, but we also do a range of general cargo as well as seafoods, both for import and export,” says Ludik, whose contacts in the industry have already gained him a lot of new business. His career includes 24 years with SAA and more recently eight years with Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. The company’s portfolio includes warehousing of ocean containers. Its 1 000 m2 is not bonded at the moment, but a Customs licence is on the short-term planning boards, said Ludik.