The intermittent congestion experienced at South Africa’s primary border crossing into Mozambique appears to have been solved – for now.
According to Mike Fitzmaurice, chief executive of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta), transit times at the border have been substantially reduced with around 450 trucks cleared every 24 hours.
This after transporters recently recommended that congestion alleviation strategies be implemented, such as opening the border 24-7.
Fesarta suggested, among others things, that weekly volume patterns be monitored to come up with a longer-term solution.
In the meantime there’s no certainty about what the border authorities have done but it’s obviously helping, bringing much-needed relief to private sector interests who often complain of extended standing time at the border.
“Things are looking a lot better,” Fitzmaurice said.
“We can only hope that it stays this way.”
The real test will come towards the end of the week though, as volume often picks up towards the weekend, making it difficult for chrome trucks from Mpumalanga to pass into Mozambique fast enough, with build-up increasing at the Kilometre Seven truck-staging area.
However, the fact that processing seemed to be significantly faster over the past weekend seems to suggest that border authorities have succeeded in speeding up processing when volume spikes.