Some progress in North-South corridor self-regulation project

A proposed project to pilot
self-regulation for road
transport operators on the
North-South corridor has taken
another step forward.
According to Barney
Curtis, executive director
of the Federation of East
and Southern African Road
Transport Associations,
the Terms of Reference for
the SADC-led North-South
Corridor pilot project are being
prepared.
And following a recent
meeting, updated terms are
due to be circulated shortly.
Self-regulation was
previously exclusively
confined to SA under the Road
Transport Management System
(RTMS). But unlike RTMS,
self-regulation in countries to
the North of South Africa will
have to involve customs.
The objective, says Curtis,
is for two to three transporters
each from Zambia, Zimbabwe
and South Africa to participate
in the project.
He pointed out that the
prevalence of overloading in
the South African forestry
industry was 4.5% in October.
In sugar it was 5.5%. This
compared with over 20% in
Mpumalanga.
“Self-regulation was
included in the Tripartite
Transport and Trade
Facilitation Programme
Annual Work Plan and was
also recommended by East
African member states during
the project on load limits and
overloading control,” said
Curtis.
“This demonstrates that
governments have accepted
that it’s important to introduce
self-regulation.”
The objective is for the
guidelines to be integrated into
all self-regulation strategies
– and they will therefore be
integrated into the NSC pilot
project.
An important factor that has
been noted is that neither the
existing RTMS strategy, nor
the driver health guidelines,
were suited to owner-drivers
and small companies. “This
was because the requirements
of both were too onerous for
the smaller transporters to
comply with,” said Curtis.
“All of the over 1000 trucks
accredited to the RTMS so far,
are from large companies.”
New self-regulation
strategies, the RTMS and
the driver health guidelines
need to find a solution to this
problem, he said.