Prognosis looks positive for extended Lebombo border hours

MCLI woos Jo’burg exporters Brenda Horne … Spoornet uncertainty inhibits development. KEVIN MAYHEW THE END game about the question of longer operating hours at the Lebombo border post with Mozambique might be near with a meeting scheduled to take place between the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative (MCLI) and the head of South African Revenue Service, Pravin Gordhan, on December 1. The MCLI – representing a number of affected parties in both Mozambique and South Africa as it tries to boost use of Maputo as a port for trade – has ideally sought a 24-hour border post. “We believe that we are closer to a solution. Getting an extension until maybe 10pm to ease the situation might be the way forward,” MCLI CEO Brenda Horne told shippers at a Johannesburg Exporters’ Club meeting at Ingwenya Country Estate in Muldersdrift last week. Key executives within the various companies that make up the MCLI addressed the Club event to promote the Maputo road and rail corridor as a viable exit and entry port. Horne said the uncertainty regarding the Spoornet railway concession was inhibiting port development and making it difficult to get shipping lines to use the port more regularly. Currently, much container cargo is feedered to Durban for transhipment to vessels on the key trade routes. “Until we can provide the collective cargo volumes at Maputo it will be difficult to convince them to change their routings or introduce more regular calls to Maputo,” she said. Jan Bekker, new business manager of the container terminal in Maputo, Mozambique International Port Services (MIPS), said that short and medium term investment plans for the facility totalled about $5m. These would include new container forklifts, additional tug masters, a new entrance to the terminal and a transit warehouse to handle packing of containers such as ambient citrus into reefers. He said potential container exports from MIPS were about 80 000 TEU per annum, with 70% going to the Far East, South East Asia and China. Estimated volumes for 2005 are 52 000 – much of this thanks to Swaziland and Zimbabwean sugar which arrives in bulk for export in containers. Sales manager of Maputo Port Development Company, Ricardo Roberts, said that dredging had now improved draught at the port to 11,5m. Dredging activities were on-going at some of the main berths to maintain them at this depth.