Botswana agents lobby government for logistics school

Skills development is one of the toughest challenges facing Botswana’s logistics industry, according to Lucas Barreto, chairman of the Freight and Customs Clearing Agents Association of Botswana. “We do not have a logistics school or some kind of facility where industry skills are taught. Companies are therefore selfreliant or skills have to be brought in from South Africa or elsewhere.” He says gaining practical knowledge around logistics is easy enough but skills are often not formally transferred to locals – especially when international companies bring in workers from elsewhere in the world. “We have to improve our skills levels while there also needs to be more skills transfer taking place.” In this regard the Association is working hard to lobby government to open a logistics school – especially in light of the growing interest in Botswana and other African countries. “One must remember that just about everything in this country is imported, so we have a high reliance on the logistics sector,” he said. “We have a variety of commercial schools and institutions in the country but nothing that speaks directly to logistics. We must change this situation and create a formal education environment for the logistics sector so as to ensure we have the skills to handle the large volumes of imports moved on a daily basis.” Barreto maintains that too much of the country’s clearing and forwarding training is self taught and not shared enough across the spectrum.