Ultimatum issued for repair of Eswatini roads

MBABANE – Alarmed by poorly maintained roads leading to Eswatini’s (Swaziland) border posts, the country’s parliament has given Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini a three-month deadline to deliver an action plan to remedy decades’ worth of border post infrastructure neglect. Thandi Nxumalo, the MP for Manzini South, told FTW a delegation of MPs including the deputy speaker of the house

had recently toured the border posts and found that some did not even have paved roads. Dirt roads make slow going for drivers and freight haulers at three border posts serving South Africa: Bulembu, Lundzi and Nsalitje. Deputy speaker Phila Buthelezi complained to a parliamentary session debating the issue recently about the “gross inefficiencies” at the Gege border post. “When we inspected the NhlanganoSicunusa road we found Eswatini border staff at Gege finished work at 4 pm, but on the South Africa side the border post workers stay on the job until 6 pm.” Even the country’s main border post with South Africa, the western Ngwenya (Oshoek) post, needed work, lawmakers said. Although Ngwenya’s highway infrastructure is the best of all border posts and buildings have recently been renovated, congestion of commercial vehicles continues to be a problem. Thembinkosi Bangani, a manager with Logico transport firm in Matsapha, told FTW: “We use the LaVumisa border post to Durban and the Ngwenya border post to Gauteng, and I wish they could duplicate the LaVumisa structures and staff at Ngwenya. They didn’t give advanced thought when they built Ngwenya to it being the main border post. We are a PTP (Preferred Trading Partner) with SRA so when our trucks are cleared in South Africa we should spend maybe 20 minutes on the Eswatini side. But because of understaffing we spend an hour on the Eswatini side on busy days. We’ve spoken to the ministry about making a flexible staff arrangement for busy days.”

  Dirt roads make slow going for drivers and freight haulers at three border posts serving South Africa. – Thandi Nxumalo