Communicate Blog

Border crossing has become an increasingly frustrating challenge for freight and transport operators. Corruption, inefficient administration, incompetence and infrastructure damage are just some of the hurdles that can delay truckers, and their clients’ loads, for days at a time according to The Citizen.

With the rainy season almost upon us transport companies once again face the problems that the floods and rising rivers bring for cross-border trade. Heavy rainfall increase river levels and the border could therefore cease to function until the water levels drop. This is especially true in the quadri-point at Victoria Falls where the Kazungula Ferry is the only way to cross the river. In service since 1979, the Kazungula Ferry directly serves traffic between Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe while indirectly serving South Africa and Namibia as well. Pontoon-type ferries are used, and, having a capacity of 70 tons, are the largest in south-central Africa. It is estimates that approximately 40-60 trucks cross the river daily from the Botswana side alone (many from South Africa), making use of the ferries.

The other big concern amongst freight companies is the corruption and delays due to inefficiency. Border posts are not only a hassle for truckers; they also cause delays to the journey that means inflated transport costs and a concern over the sustainability of freight jobs. 

It is however not all just bad news, huge strides have been made and there are examples of border posts functioning very effectively. In the North South Corridor such as Chirundu, where the first One Stop Border Post in Africa was opened in 2009, it reduced transit times of around 36 hours to within 1 day. The new infrastructure developments that took place at Kasumbalesa in 2010 (Dry Port) on the DRC side and the new border post infrastructure development on the Zambian side opened in early 2011, have reduced truck queues from 5 km to a few hundred meters and cut transit times in half.

So, while inefficiency at border posts negatively influences regional trade growth, the outlook is still positive. There have been good examples of border crossings that have gotten it right, the Cape-Namibia, Maputo Corridor and Swaziland border crossings, for example, consistently have steady flow. The challenge for South Africa is to learn from these successes and implement this at all the border crossings to assist in the development and growth of the road freight industry.