Cross-border road freight trade facilitator Mike Fitzmaurice has been selected as one of five vice presidents to represent the southern Africa region for the newly formed “African Union’s Transport and Logistics Organisations” (AUTLO).
The four other country representatives are Nigeria for West Africa, Cameroon for Central Africa, Ethiopia for East Africa, and Libya for northern Africa.
The president of the provisionally named organisation is Mustapha Chaoune, who heads up the Union Africaine des organisations de transport et de logistique, the Francophone precursor to the AUTLO.
Fitzmaurice, a One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) expert, was attending a Mobility, Transport and Logistics conference in Tangier, Morocco, last week when he was pulled into a meeting that led to his new designation.
As chief executive of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Freight Associations (Fesarta), he was supposed to deliver a presentation on “Digital monitoring of the corridors, border posts, and ports in Africa”, at the conference itself.
“Instead, I got called into the meeting that lasted till about 9pm.”
He said he didn’t expect this at all and was honoured by the new role, although he is yet to learn what his responsibilities will be.
Now 69, Fitzmaurice said: “It’s a massive opportunity and representing the AU obviously carries a lot of clout. I honestly didn’t think I would land a role like this in my retirement years.”
The position tops a long succession of milestones for him in the road freight industry that started “straight out of school because I found myself at a loose end, not knowing what to do with my life”.
What started as an apprenticeship as an air brake fitter at Leyland eventually evolved into stints featuring fleet management, a two-year period as a border consultant at Beitbridge, and a World Bank commission to oversee an OSBP pilot study at the Zambia-Zimbabwe border post of Chirundu, the latter experience being the impetus for the formation of his own transport and logistics consultancy.
“I think in the last 20 years I have conducted more than 200 surveys at 85 border posts and have driven all the corridors in our region end-to-end.”
Appointed CEO of Fesarta in 2015, Fitzmaurice has continued the work of his predecessor, Barney Curtis, by assisting private-sector service providers through engaging with public-sector officials and organisations to facilitate cross-border trade.
Fitzmaurice said the formation of the Transit Assistance Bureau (Transist) in 2018 was probably the most important initiative launched by Fesarta to help long-distance transporters with the many challenges they faced at the sub-Saharan region’s various borders.
Transist proved particularly invaluable in helping frustrated transporters during Covid when different lockdown measures instituted by various countries in the region caused supply-chain border snags.
“I will continue working towards harmonising and standardising border procedures in the region,” said Fitzmaurice, who holds a customs procedures qualification.
