In the face of Covid-19, keeping employees who work across borders safe is a priority. According to Allison Pinheiro, regional sales and development manager at Bester Clearing and Forwarding, the biggest challenge in the sector at present is limiting human contact, particularly at border posts, as the number of corona cases in the region increases.
“The world is in crisis mode at the moment over Covid-19 – and although more and more essential supplies will need to get to the region, the reality is that the free movement of truck drivers in particular has become an issue in the Southern and Central parts of Africa,” said Pinheiro.
“As a responsible employer we have taken time to educate our people on the risk, hygiene practices and means of reducing the spread while still continuing to offer the best service possible to our clients.”
“We have harnessed technology and are offering an uninterrupted service to our clients who are moving essential goods and are using relay methods which in the previous “normal” environment would never have worked. We are certain that our ability to think out of the box will hold us in good stead to embrace whatever the new normal will look like, as we continue to look for new solutions, methodologies and technologies.”
Pinheiro said reduced volumes were evident in the cross-border sector and would remain that way for the next few months, but this was not predicted to continue in the long term.
“Currently the world economy is a big challenge for our customers and it is only likely to get worse over the next few months. Increasing the efficiency of logistics will be of extreme importance.”
Pinheiro said once the region got through the pandemic the company would continue to offer groupage services from South Africa to Zambia three times a week as well as a groupage service to Zimbabwe four times a week, over and above its regular clearing and forwarding service offering. “ We have continued to grow our cross-border operations and plans remain in the pipeline to increase our presence in the region, which is evident in the fact that we have recently increased our team by five highly experienced members with a cumulative total of over 120 years’ experience.”
