Long-haul drivers working hinterland corridors into the Copperbelt seem to have no respite from what must surely be the worst cross-border transit in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – the Kasumbalesa Border Post into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
With hauliers stuck for days south of the notorious choke point, the SADC Truck Drivers’ Association has lobbied the Zambian government of Hakainde Hichilema to intervene militarily.
This after attempts by border authorities to separate the wheat from the chaff and allow drivers with precleared cargo documentation to leapfrog ahead of uncleared trucks, caused tempers to fray even further.
Amid the mêlée of haphazard government efforts to clear the months-long backlog, the queue of trucks stretches all the way past Chingola to Chambisi, almost 80 kilometres south of the congested border.
With drivers having no access to water and food, and forced into the bush for their ablutions, the Kasumbalesa snarl-up is on a knife edge.
“It’s all well and good that the SADC Truck Drivers’ Association wants the Zambian army to patrol the queue,” says Mike Fitzmaurice, chief executive of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations.
“The fact that they’ve also asked troops to hand out water to drivers also says something of the concern they have for the humanitarian care they’re trying to secure for the drivers.
“The thing is, no border is supposed to work like this, where drivers wait for up to 10 days before passing through a border, having no access to things like pit latrines while stuck in the queue.”
According to Fitzmaurice, the idea of allowing carriers of precleared docs to skip the queue has backfired badly, clearly proven by the fact that even compliant truckers are stuck in the queue.
Last week, he explained that preclearing cargo should be done before trucks are allowed to proceed on their journey – at source.
And while Zambian authorities are trying to untangle red tape issues south of the border, DRC border authorities simply refuse to allow any trucks through between 20:00 and 06:00.
The reason for this, despite there being a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in place that guarantees 24/7 operations at the border, was apparently to process documentation, Fitzmaurice explained.
In reality though, it makes a mockery of the MoU as it means that 24-hour traffic at the important Copperbelt Crossing stops for 10 hours every night.
Additional snags in sorting out the snarl-up include digital cargo seals that are often not available, despite 15 000 of these seals being in circulation.
Then there are the roads to alternative crossings at Mokambo and Sakania, rendered almost impassable by pouring rain.
“One gets the idea that the authorities don’t actually want the borders to work properly. The roads to Sakania and Mokambo were supposed to have been upgraded long ago, and still they are a muddy mess, with truck drivers getting stuck on a regular basis and relying on graders to come and help them.
“As for the seals: how is it that there are 15 000 in circulation but you run short of them. I’ve heard stories that seals can be bought on the black market.”
Fitzmaurice said if one considered how borders elsewhere in the region were managed by oversight bodies, as is the case in the well-run East Africa Community, it beggars belief to think that this is not the case with Kasumbalesa.
