Flooding is again threatening operations at South Africa’s Groblersbrug Border Post, the important minerals supply chain crossing on the Copperbelt bypass through Botswana to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
On Tuesday morning, March 17, Kake Barnett of the Trans-Africa Border Hub, warned long-distance transporters using the transit that they should start looking at alternative routes.
But the only feasible route for transporters in South Africa serving Zambian and DRC clients is through Zimbabwe, currently still not viable because of cross-border costs at Beitbridge, road conditions north of the Limpopo River and corruption by Zim’s law enforcement authorities.
Barnett has said that transporters have been advised to make use of alternative routes, but that no word on closing operations has been received yet.
He also said, “Border officials are pushing to get the current queue of trucks through before anything happens.”
If the Limpopo floods and causes border facilities at Groblersbrug to close, it would once again draw attention to the border’s impractical position right on a river that floods every year.
Last year the Limpopo flooded twice, each time causing closure of the border.
Mike Fitzmaurice of the Transit Assistance Bureau, has on various occasions said that although it was understood that Groblersbrug was never designed for the current supply volumes it handles, it was time for South Africa and Botswana to come up with an alternative.
He has long proposed that land available on Botswana’s side of the river, at the Martin’s Drift Border Post, be developed as a One-Stop Border Post (OSBP).
He has added that it was regrettable that the OSBP potential of Groblersbrug was overlooked, especially in light of proposed plans by the Department of Public Works to improve six other borders with Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Lesotho, and not include the Copperbelt crossing in its plan.
