Johannesburg-based
Professional Risk and Asset
Management has come up
with a cost-effective solution
to mitigate risk and aid
compliance for
exporters from
Lesotho – which
has become
the largest
exporter of
garments to
the US under
the African
Growth and
Opportunity
Act (Agoa).
“It’s an
environment unlike
any in which we have
operated in before,”
said operations director
Gerhard van Zyl, “and we
realised that we would have to
bring change to a system that
was entrenched in the market.
“The theft problem was
becoming a national problem
and even had the stakeholders
in government concerned.”
The company has formulated
methods to record and monitor
the complete process from
loading, through to CTO or
pre-advice at ports, relying
on technology to
bring the process
together. “This
allowed us to
formulate a
complete audit
trail to help
determine
potential
issues. And
once we got to
that point, we
realised that we
needed to provide
live locations on the
vehicles.
“We have developed
a GPS tracker that gives
live locations, allowing us to
monitor loads leaving Lesotho.
Clients also receive special logins
to enable them to track their
own loads.”
But it was also necessary
to get the buy-in of local
transport operators, many of
whom have one or two trucks,
said Van Zyl. “Many of the
truckers were unaware of the
very easy processes that could
be implemented to benefit their
route security and bring them
up to standard with the rest
of the market. With that in
mind we started the Lesotho
Transporters’ Guild and we have
been able to institute change
from within the market to the
benefit of all the stakeholders.”
Through various
countermeasures, the company
has secured GIT insurance
for manufacturers – resulting
in a safer route all-round,
according to Van Zyl. “We have
not had any losses on the route
and are continuing to look
for innovative solutions. For
example, with the new Solas
Container Weight Verification
requirement, we have been able
to use weighing equipment at
the origin – and because of our
very secure audit, the ports
accept this weighing method.”
