An advert in one of the Zambian daily papers was instructive. In the advert, the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) announced the relocation of all customs clearance operations to Kazungula One Stop Border Post (OSBP) from the Livingstone Port Office.
“This is to notify all customs clearing agents, importers, exporters, transporters and the general public that border operations at Kazungula One Stop Border Post will officially commence on 10th May, 2021 following completion of construction of the bridge and the OSBP facilities,” ZRA said.
“In this development, the Zambia Revenue Authority wishes to inform you that all customs clearance operations that are currently conducted at Livingstone Port Office will now be conducted at Kazungula OSBP.”
The advert was placed in the same week the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) announced that there would be delays at the Beitbridge Border Post, Zimbabwe’s busiest port of entry, as part of the expansion programme. Zimra said the exercise would take four to six weeks.
This expansion programme is welcome. The only challenge is that the delays will start when its competitor, Kazungula, is launching.
The Kazungula Bridge is a key project under the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa which is focusing on building trans-boundary infrastructure projects to boost regional integration.
PIDA is an African Union Commission initiative, in partnership with the African Union Development Agency, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Zimbabwe was supposed to be part of the project but failed to join the train as there were disagreements involving her and its neighbours Zambia and Botswana.
Unperturbed, the two countries proceeded with the project. When President Emmerson Mnangagwa tried to join the party, it was too late: the horses had already bolted.
Kazungula is a game changer and players in the freight business attest to that. What this means is that traffic has an alternative other than Beitbridge.
It behoves Zimbabwe to be efficient at the border and eliminate non tariffs barriers such as corruption as one executive alluded in a story carried in this paper. The era of bottlenecks at the border is long gone.
The efficiency at Beitbridge holds the key to the success of Kazungula. The loss of business by Beitbridge has serious ramifications to freight forwarders, Zimra and other downstream industries. The freight business is still smarting from the effects of Covid-19 which reduced traffic at the borders.
Zimbabwe can cling to the fact that the Beitbridge-Chirundu road is a key component of the Trans-African Highway Network link between South Africa and Zambia.
It is also part of the North–South Corridor Project and the Cape to Cairo Road, and a gateway to the common market for Eastern and Southern Africa. But that alone is not enough.
The dilapidated state of the country’s roads may force transporters to choose a longer route which is efficient.
That era where trucks would spend four days at the border is no longer sustainable.
A mindset shift is required as the business as usual approach will chase away business from Beitbridge.
