Fact-finding mission targets Beitbridge congestion

In line with its mission to
oversee the regional interests
of transporters in the East
and Southern African region,
Fesarta last month led a factfinding
mission to Beitbridge
in the wake of deteriorating
congestion at the busy border
post.
While the rest of the country
moved into holiday mode,
FTW’s Tersia Booyzen joined
Barney Curtis of the Federation
of East and Southern Africa
Road Transport Associations
(Fesarta) and Gavin Kelly of the
Road Freight Association (RFA)
to establish why, on some days,
the border queue stretches for
up to 14 kilometres and why
trucks often take days and not
hours to cross the Limpopo.
Despite the socio-economic
and political woes of
Zimbabwe, Beitbridge remains
Africa’s busiest border post
when measured by cargo
volume.
At present the congestion
is aggravated by the cholera
epidemic and migrant workers
crossing the border over the
holiday period.
“Fesarta takes an interest in
anything that affects the freeflow
of trucks and their goods
throughout the region,” Curtis
told FTW. “Over the years it
has thus brought problem issues
to the attention of the regional
players such as SADC, Comesa
and the World Bank and
participated in all initiatives to
try to solve the problems. The
transporters themselves brought
the issue of Beitbridge to the
attention of Fesarta and the
association has sensitised the
regional players to the issue.
“The Regional Trade
Facilitation Programme (RTFP),
led by Mark Pearson and
funded by the British donor
agency DFID has a project on
the north-south corridor. The
project has many facets to it
and one of these is to identify the problem issues on the
corridor and try to solve them.
As Fesarta has a close working
relationship with the RTFP, it
was natural to highlight the
problems at Beitbridge.”
In order to identify the
problems, Fesarta has been
in discussions with all of
the stakeholders including
transporters, clearing agents and
customs officials on both sides
of the border.
During the visit to Beitbridge
it became clear that one of the
problems on which everyone
agreed was the inadequate and
outdated physical infrastructure
at the border. As the border has
become busier over the years,
facilities have been added on an
ad hoc basis and it is currently
detrimental to the free flow of
traffic and goods.
The next step is to arrange a
workshop where the problems
and possible solutions
will be discussed.
“At this time, apart from the
workshop, it is not clear what
the RTFP will fund, since we
have not yet clarified exactly
what needs to be done. In terms
of delegates to the stakeholder
workshop, we are hoping to
attract high-profile people
from Harare and Pretoria –
people who are responsible
for the various government
departments at Beitbridge and
also high-profile
industry leaders.
“The outcomes from the
workshop will have to be
ratified by the government
departments which will make
the changes. These will
probably have to be done back
in Harare and Pretoria. In
addition, there will presumably
be joint decisions (such as the
one-stop border post) and there
may well have to be MOUs to
cover these. Much as was done
at Chirundu,” Curtis told FTW.