Poor service continues to constrict growth
JAMES HALL
MBABANE - Swaziland’s road and rail freight industry is using the unusually quiet start to the year to assess the factors standing in the way of growth, including an uncompromising Spoornet that has failed to speed up the offloading of Swaziland-bound cargo at Durban.
“The pace at Durban is frustratingly slow, and our clients are suffering,” Tony Viegas, general manager of MSC Logistics told FTW.
“Spoornet has promised to give an audience to representatives of the Swazi freight companies. It is now an old promise, and they have failed to deliver,” Viegas said.
MSC Logistics is among several inland haulage companies headquartered near Swaziland Railway’s inland container depot at the Matsapha Industrial Estate, on the edge of the central commercial town Manzini. Hauliers told FTW that uncertainty about delivery times from the port of Durban was not the only intangible affecting their business. Concern about Swaziland’s continuing participation in US trade schemes like AGOA have hurt foreign direct investment in the country, and have caused a scaling back of freight companies’ business projections.
“Government has this ‘rule of law’ crisis unresolved, and investors are worried about putting their money into a country with a problem court system. They feel their investments may not be protected. The rule of law crisis may jeopardise AGOA,” a trucking company manager said.
