The authorities in Zimbabwe
are intent on making so
much foreign exchange out
of cross-border truckers that
they are just costing them
out of business, according
to John Wheadon, MD of
Falcongate Logistics.
“The Zimbabweans are
killing us. They have so
many fees, charges, tolls
and taxes that you need to
keep a US dollar account
in Zimbabwe just to supply
your drivers with enough
cash to get across the
border,” he said.
“And they are incredibly
inventive in finding all sorts
of new ways to make more
money out of truckers.”
They make an impressive
list, and Wheadon released
details of just some of them.
They include: Trucktrailer
annual commercial
vehicle guarantees (CVGs)
(US$100 per rig); toll
fees for transit (US$150
each way); Environmental
Management Agency (EMA)
fees (US$60 per product);
carbon tax (US$30 per
month); port health charges
(US$30); agricultural fee
(US$20); new monthly
insurance from Zimra
(US$60); gate pass (US$28
each way) – even a BURCO
customs documentation
processing fee for handling
all this paperwork they’ve
created (US$6 each way).
“So,” said Wheadon, “if
I go to Malawi with a cargo
of syfermox, and return
with tobacco, the US dollar
outlay in Zimbabwe alone
will be US$478.
“They’ve also just
made all private company
insurance policies null
and void, and now you can
only get monthly insurance
through Zimra (the country’s
customs authority). That was
US$15 000 of fully pre-paid
annual insurance policies
for my vehicles down the
drain.”
Another of Wheadon’s
latest gripes is the list of
transit products now covered
under Zimbabwe’s EMA.
“Effective from July
15,” he told FTW, “the list
has now doubled in size,
and covers 135 chemical
products that EMA has
classified as hazardous
substances. The new items
include fertilisers amongst
many other things.”
And an example of the
effect of this? “We move
1 000-tons a month of
non-hazardous syfermox
(magnesium oxide) overborder
into Malawi,”
said Wheadon. “It is not
a common product, and
there’s only one place in
the world this comes from
- that’s SA. And it’s now
magically appeared on the
new list.
“To choose that specific item, they must have gone
through all transit border
documentation for this year,
and calculated just how
much extra foreign exchange
they could make out of
including that on the EMA
list.”
These transit fees for
“dangerous” goods have also
met with the unfavourable
attention of the Road Freight
Association (RFA) as long
as a year ago – and before
this latest expansion of the
product list.
At the time, technical and
operations manager, Gavin
Kelly, told us that these fees
had been put on hold during
2008.
“But,” he added,
“according to Statutory
Instrument 77 of 2009
which was published on
May 29, and refers to section
140 of the Environmental
Management Act (Chapter
20:27), the fees will now be
charged on all dangerous
goods loads transiting
Zimbabwe.”
And, although the original
legislation (SI 12 of 2007)
classified chemicals in three
groups of severity (green,
amber and red), Kelly said
that it was also decided that
the official inspecting the
vehicle and receiving the
transit fee could change the
classification of a chemical
if he felt it was more
dangerous than originally
classified.
“The obvious implication
is that we would in all
likelihood always pay the
maximum fee (US$60 per
product) provided for,” he
added.
The RFA took this matter
up with the Zimbabwe
ministries of transport and
trade and industry last June,
but no response has been
forthcoming.
Kelly also told us that
it is now due to come up
before the Southern African
Development Community
(SADC) very shortly. But he
expected that the issue was
likely to end up being “file
thirteened” there as well.
Zimbabwe milks cross-border truckers
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