By challenging the status quo, the BHL group is helping to bring down transport costs for shippers using the Walvis Bay corridor, according to new business development director Duncan Dukhi. The company has gone from having no presence on the route in 2014 to being one of the biggest hauliers. One of the first things they did was to question the practice of charging different rates for the up and down runs. “We run a fair business. Why should it cost more to carry cargo from A to B than it does from B to A,” he says. As a result BHL has been able to balance its loads, and has added 17 000 tons a month to the traffic on the corridor over the past year. “We have not taken business away from anyone. This is all new volumes,” he says. Another way the group controls costs is to purchase cheaper Chinese trucks, which have been proven to be reliable in Africa. Savings on finance charges are passed on to the shipper. Then there is the route – BHL has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Zambian national roads agency for the trucker to maintain a stretch of road that cuts 800 kilometres off the traditional route between Solwezi in western Zambia to Walvis Bay. BHL moved its Zambian headquarters from Ndola to Solwezi in order to be closer to one of its biggest customers, the Kanshansi copper mine. Here Dukhi is critical of other truckers who are using the route without contributing to the maintenance. BHL has absorbed all the costs for some time, but Zambian and Namibian hauliers are starting to contribute to the link, which benefits both the truckers and their customers. The next market disruption BHL is working on is the establishment of multimodal transhipment hubs in Namibia. It is working with TransNamib for containers to be carried by road between Grootfontein and Walvis Bay. This will allow a faster turn-around of trucks on the corridor while reducing wear on Namibian roads and increasing road safety on the route. “As transporters we can deliver the best service to our clients by partnering with the parastatal rail agency,” he says. BHL’s next focus is building up its Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) business, with the old head office facility in Ndola being used for the staging of cargo to and from the DRC.
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One of the first things they did was to question the practice of charging different rates for the up and down runs. – Duncan Dukhi