Swazi logistics indaba puts border efficiency first

MBABANE – Swaziland’s
first Transport, Freight and
Logistics Indaba held last
week in Ezulwini focused
the landlocked country’s
government and transport
sector officials on the need
for more efficient border
procedures and the vital
importance of road and rail
links.
“We must concentrate
in the case of the transport
of goods on achieving the
highest degree of efficiency,”
Prime Minister Sibusiso
Dlamini said in his keynote
address.
Government’s policy of
increasing value-added
exploitation of agricultural
production, particularly
sugar, and mineral
extractives requires a means
to get these products out of
the country, the PM said.
“For economic growth
we need to be seeing more
goods of value produced
in our country for both
the domestic and external
markets,” Dlamini said.
A new transportation
policy integrating the various
means of moving goods
into a more coherent system
would assist, the PM said.
“Our rail network
expansion plans (linking
Gauteng to Swaziland via
a new Transnet-partnered
line) will impact significantly
on the efficiency of our
transport, resulting in lower
costs,” he said.
The premier acknowledged
government’s responsibility
to communicate new
border procedures to all
stakeholders in a clear and
timely manner, to ensure
the SADC Protocol on
Transport, Communications
and Meteorology was
implemented through local
legislation. Government
must also pursue bilateral
transportation agreements
with neighbouring countries
and improve communication
on transport issues with the
private sector.
Calling the inaugural
transport indaba “long
overdue,” Duma Msibi,
chairman of the National
Road Transport Council,
noted that a country like
Swaziland that depended on
the outside world for 80%
of its goods and services
had little choice but to
improve cross-border trade
efficiency.
He called for liberalisation
by financial institutions
of policies that affected
the transport industry to
facilitate investment in the
sector.