Border post upgrades

Lebombo is to be the forerunner of the others. We have a smooth traffic flow going through there already, with few hitches. We have proved it can work and everything is now in place for it to be the showcase for the rest of the posts."
But Van Niekerk has given a thumbs down to the suggestion from the South African Association of Freight Forwarders (SAAFF) that the posts be turned into what they have termed 'one-stop' operations.
"You can forget that ideal, it is never going to happen," he says. "Throughout the SADC region we have found that there is total resistance to this type of thinking. You simply cannot get two nations to work together under one roof, but the system we have developed with both sides of the border is streamlined with integrated processing ensuring rapid movement of traffic."
One item which has dogged the Lebombo upgrading has been the difficulties placed in the path by the clearing agents, he says.
"Some of them are dogmatic and don't want to co-operate with our planning, but in the long run they just have to accept that they must come into line with South African Revenue Services (Sars) policies. It is their future on the line.
"Unlike at other posts, such as Beit Bridge where agents pay for facilities, those at Lebombo have enjoyed free accommodation and free electricity. This has to stop. They have to move into new premises and pay for services. They have to realise they have to become a paying enterprise. To put it simply, their business is going to change along with all the other things we are doing to make border post operations super-
efficient."