Transporters pend 70% of their time in queues

Border delays remain one of the biggest challenges for truckers in southern and East Africa, driving up cost significantly. Mike Fitzmaurice, head of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta), said unless border delays were addressed costs would continue to escalate. “There was a move towards creating a one-stop border post at Chirundu that would ultimately be a guideline for other border posts in the region to reduce border crossing time and improve efficiency, but this has still not been achieved.” He said studies had shown that transporters were spending around 30% of their time travelling along corridors while the remaining 70% was spent waiting at border posts, ports, weighbridges, police checkpoints and other stops en route. “This wasted time means the cost of goods increases. Africa has the highest logistics costs in the world and the impact of wasted time at border posts contributes to this.” Fitzmaurice said while there were many attempts being made by organisations such as SADC to address the situation at ground level there was very little change being achieved. “It is a political situation because even though countries agree at a regional level to address these issues it does not happen at border posts and so there is no change.” An example of this is the SADC protocol on transport that came into effect more than 20 years ago. While all the countries agreed and signed the document nothing has been achieved on an individual country level. “Add to this the host of fees and taxes that apply and it is understandable why goods in Africa are so expensive,” he said. “If there was a definite attempt to increase intraregional trade by putting these trade agreements in place, it would ensure a far more efficient and affordable movement of goods and each country would pay less for its commodities and goods. But until this operating environment is transformed we are going to have to contend with escalating costs.” INSERT & CAPTION Africa has the highest logistics costs in the world and the impact of wasted time at border posts contributes to this. – Mike Fitzmaurice