Flow of trucks through Lebombo Border speeds up

South African truckers and transporters closed off access leading to the border for two days in late August (August 22 and 23) following months of voicing their grievances regarding the alleged inadequate flow of traffic and processing of trucks at the border.

Some drivers had also bemoaned a number of vehicles jumping the queue to get across the border, while many truck drivers said they had had to endure two to three days of waiting in traffic to be processed.

The truck drivers started gathering at the port on Saturday (August 21) evening and by Sunday (August 22) had blocked off the entry point to the border.

By Monday morning (August 23), a 19-kilometre-long queue of trucks had formed, and some drivers tried to speak to the dry port manager in hopes of resolving the issues.

On the afternoon of August 23, the SANDF, the police and members of the border management met with the disgruntled transporters and truckers in an attempt to disperse the drivers and resolve the issues the group had been raising for the past several months.

The border post port manager, Col Obed Maditsi, spoke to the drivers at the site of the protest and promised to look into the problems they had raised. He also explained that the drivers had been misinformed regarding the processing of trucks – it took less than a minute to process them.

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Maditsi told Corridor Gazette last week that the border management had explained to the drivers and transporters that the processing does not take long and described it to them in detail.

“Whatever problems truck drivers have entering South Africa from Mozambique’s side cannot be helped by us. It is not our jurisdiction.”

He added that they would also be looking into the allegations of queue jumping and addressing the situation.

Speaking to the newspaper following the protest, Philemon Ngcongwane (the ops manager of Amalgamated Bulk, a subdivision of RTG) said the situation seemed to have been stabilised at the border, and things were running a lot more smoothly than they had been before the protest.

“The situation is a lot better,” said Ngcongwane. “There seems to be a major difference in terms of trucks moving across the border as compared to a few weeks ago. We appreciate the effort by the customs border and the border management committee in bringing about this change.”

He said the flow of trucks into the port was much better and that it was a joint accomplishment that would ensure things at the border are stable.

Ngcongwane said there are a few more things the transporters and truckers want to look at, such as having the border post opened 24 hours a day, but that is a minor issue compared to the previous backlog trucks had been experiencing regarding entering the border and being processed.

“We do want to achieve having the border open 24/7, but the other issues have mostly been resolved,” he said. Dion Gregory, the ops supervisor of Unitrans Africa, agreed that there had been a fairly decent improvement in the way trucks were being processed and were moving through the border, but the queue is still quite slow.

“There are a few tweaks that need to be made here and there, but we appreciate the efforts made to try and resolve these issues,” he said. “I feel that if the border is open 24 hours a day, that will really make a massive improvement.”

The interim management of the Komatipoort Business Chamber (KBC) has also been key in facilitating meetings and creating petitions in an attempt to assist the truckers and resolve the matter.

KBC’s Jan Engelbrecht had set a meeting on July 23 with the key stakeholders in the hopes of coming to a solution with Gregory, Ngcongwane as well as members of provincial traffic, Home Affairs Immigration stationed at the Lebombo Border Post, and other members of the KBC.

The issues discussed were why the border post could not be open 24/7, inadequate staff and equipment in some stations at the border post, insufficient traffic law enforcement, and a view to the future planning of government to address these.

Another meeting has been set by the KBC for this Friday.