The hinterland border posts of Zambia appear to be functioning well – for now – following last week’s violent upheaval at Kasumbalesa, unprecedented volumes of truck traffic passing through the country’s Chirundu border with Zimbabwe, and a recent spike in Covid-19 confirmations at the Nakonde border into Tanzania.
For a change the notoriously congested Copper Belt crossing into the Democratic Republic of the Congo is quiet and no further incidents of faction fighting, which last week caused sporadic closure of customs facilities at Kasumbalesa, have been reported.
It has been reported though that trucks exiting the DRC’s copper mining province of Haut-Katanga have been instructed to do so via the infamous Mokambo Road, a dirt track diverting traffic south-east of the ordinarily busy border.
Transporters say it's because of extortion, plain and simple, as there’s really no reason why south-bound rigs can’t pass through Kasumbalesa.
“They charge a toll fee of $50 per truck to use the Mokambo Road and it’s not even a road, it’s a track,” said Mike Fitzmaurice, chief executive of the Federation of East and Southern Africa Road Transport Associations.
Fitzmaurice also added context to a report in a Zambian newspaper trumpeting the Zambian Revenue Authority (ZRA) and its decision to open the Nakonde and Chirundu borders on a 24-hour basis.
“Nakonde has always been a 24-hour operation,” he said.
What has happened is that the border has been re-opened after it was recently shut because of a steep spike in positive coronavirus cases entering Zambia through its corridor to the Port of Dar es Salaam.
This was confirmed by ZRA Commissioner, General Kingsley Chanda.
Earlier this week it was also erroneously reported that a week-long 24-hour testing period at Chirundu was an initiative of the Zimbabwean Revenue Authority (Zimra).
The initiative was inaccurately credited to Zimra and is in fact because of ZRA’s ongoing attempts to unblock its borders.
Be that as it may, cross-border freight interests all agree that once the testing period ends this weekend, ZRA will hopefully stick to easing north-bound traffic by running a 24-hour service.
Unfortunately Zimra, mainly because of rigid smuggling checks on trucks going south, continues to cause congestion north of the border.
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