Paper pulp keeps Chrisilda trucks moving

JAMES HALL ONE OF Swaziland’s largest road transport firms, 30 year-old Chrisilda Transport Company, is expanding a core businesses, hauling the paper pulp that for years has been a key Swazi export product. A Chrisilda subsidiary company, Mphumelelo Forest Services, has begun operations at Sappi Usuthu’s plantation in the forested hills of south central Swaziland. Mphumelelo (the SiSwati word for “success”) works internally, hauling lumber from clearings to the pulp factory. “We’re in the teething stage at this point. It’s a new company, and we’re training personnel, putting management in place, and hoping to see the benefits,” Chrisilda company director Kevin DuPont told FTW. Chrisilda’s fleet of over 40 Mercedes 3348 model trucks is kept in motion between Swaziland and the port of Durban transporting Sappi’s paper pulp for export. On return trips to Swaziland, company trucks carry goods for major local companies in the agriculture and food processing sector, like Swazi Milling, Farm Chemicals, and Grow More. “These are bulk items like rice and fertilizer. We are a long distance transport operation dealing with large shipments,” said DuPont.