A wholesale rethink, akin to a paradigm shift, is what will be required to safeguard South Africa’s supply chain against the carnage that resulted in loss of life and destruction of property seen on South Africa’s roads in the aftermath of a failed insurrection attempt.
That’s the shared view of Mike Fitzmaurice and Gavin Kelly, respectively chief executives of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations and the Road Freight Association.
Both road freight custodians told Freight News that it would take a ‘project cargo’-type approach around security issues, applying an abnormal freight mindset to moving ordinary freight to ensure that a repeat of last week’s violence is avoided.
Fitzmaurice went so far as to say that Mooi River Toll Plaza on the N3 should either be moved altogether, away from the informal sprawl that adjoins it, or that a user-pay green-line initiative be instituted for the country’s road freight sector.
His argument is not unfounded as data gathered since truck burning became a method of sowing terror on the N3 clearly shows that there’s an ugly face to Mooi River.
Kelly also supports the notion that since the unrest, all road freight in South Africa should be given the same kind of special treatment that conventional project cargo receives.
· Read the full version of our interview with these thought leaders in Freight Features’ “Project Cargo” edition, out this Friday.