Border delays add to economic woes

The "meltdown" of the world economies is a serious issue for all participants in all business sectors. “With exchange rates rocketing as they are, all sectors need to become costefficient and factoring in unnecessary delays is really not an option,” says Hazel Briggs of HB Services. Speedy delivery to clients is of the essence and one of the more worrying issues for transporters is border clearing times. The border clearing systems just cannot cope with the volumes of traffic and this is unfortunately not just confined to one particular border. “Recently Musina had a 5km backlog of trucks, at Kasangula one or other of the ferries is regularly out of action and just this week Chirundu border experienced a systems failure. “When one considers the cost of the delays to the haulier in transport days lost, to the importers in late deliveries, and the impact of farmers’ chemicals arriving late, the cost factor to all sectors is enormous,” Briggs said. HB Services would applaud an organisation that could make representation to the various governments on our borders to tackle the costly delays in clearing cargo, she added.