Short-sighted law threatens business

KEVIN MAYHEW
DURBAN PORT will lose an annual R17m in income stream if the government does not look into its law prohibiting United States trucks imported into the country from being driven on South African roads en route to the southern African region.
Pat Pillay, managing director of Orion Freight Forwarders in Stamfordhill Road, says the alternative of loading the imported left hand drive vehicles onto flatbed transport until they cross the border is prohibitively expensive.
“There is a demand for these vehicles over the borders and Durban is the preferred entry point. That demand is not going to stop because of South African law – the business will go somewhere else, like the ports of Mozambique, and we will never get it back,” he says.
These second hand trucks come in mainly from the United Kingdom and America. Those from the UK are already right hand drive and can be driven on local roads, he says.
To cater for this, Orion has its own fleet of vehicles used to transport vehicles and the other goods that it handles to its depots throughout the region to offer door-to-door warehousing and delivery solutions.
The company has the facilities to clear cargo into Africa and offers overseas forwarding.