Trucking specialist condemns Beitbridge inefficiency

MARIE-LAIS EMOND TRUCKING CARGO daily between Malawi and Johannesburg and Durban is the specialist focus of Gauteng-based Falcongate/Trans-Tech. With a fleet of 40 trucks, it caters for a wide spectrum of cargo needs, providing a consolidation service for part or full loads, crating and palletisation, container handling and empty container returns to Johannesburg, Malawi and eastern Zambia. Personal tracking twice daily is one of the added-value services on offer. The company’s versatile portfolio includes airfreight, abnormal loads, hazardous cargo and customised break-bulk cargo. “80 % of the current business is breakbulk,” says owner and CEO John Wheadon, who established the company three years ago. “I was nearly born in a Bedford truck in London,” says Wheadon. “I’ve been in trucking all my life and I know the business from top to bottom with all this valuable experience to benefit our customers.” In all his experience, however, Wheadon says he has never encountered anything like the conditions at Beitbridge customs on the Zimbabwean side. “The new scanning system is causing 6-km queues. Any carrier too big for the scanner is sidelined to Condep where treatment of the cargo is atrocious. “It is unacceptable,” says Wheadon, who has drafted a strong complaint to the authorities.”