BUSINESS IS looking up in Lesotho, as specialist Kayhil Freight can testify after seven years of experience moving general cargo along the Johannesburg - Maseru route. “It’s busy for us, and it’s getting better. There was a big drop a couple of years back when the Chinese pulled out,” said Kayhil Freight MD Kevin Dagnin. Complaining that they had no incentive to stay in Lesotho, all but the biggest Asian garment factories, whose investments were too large to easily leave behind, departed the landlocked country. Transportation shifted to humanitarian aid, with Kayhil contracted by freight forwarding firms dealing with the World Food Programme and other international food aid organisations. But an upswing in industrial activity revived the need for general goods transport. An electronic manufacturing plant took over an abandoned garment factory. Another international firm has started making TV components. “We are bringing in agricultural tools, hardware, computers by the hundreds. Government is pushing industrial development and the mining industry,” Dagnin said. Kayhil Freight owns 49% of FedEx’s Lesotho operation, but handles courier jobs from other companies that offer a service to Lesotho but don’t actually go there. “We end up with the business. Sometimes there will be five layers of documentation from different courier services on a package,” said Dagnin.
