Maputo — The South African Cross-Border Road Transport Agency (C-BRTA) lifted its illegal ban on Mozambican transport operators entering South Africa on Saturday, after long and difficult negotiations.

On Saturday afternoon, Mozambican buses, minibuses and trucks could cross into South Africa again, after a ban which had lasted over 36 hours.

Despite the initial claim by the South African agency that it was not willing to hold a meeting until 24 March, the Mozambican side insisted on negotiations, and the joint transport committee between the two countries met on the South African side of the Ressano Garcia border post on Saturday morning.

The negotiations lasted for seven hours, but eventually resulted in lifting the ban. The Mozambican government's director for surface transport, Olivio Pinto, told Radio Mozambique on Sunday that concessions had been made by both sides, but he gave no details. A definitive solution is only expected when the transport ministers of the two countries meet.

The C-BRTA is the body that licenses foreign operators who cross into South Africa. It has no authority whatsoever to close the border to Mozambican passenger and cargo transport operators as it did on Friday.

The excuse given by C-BRTA is that the Mozambican authorities have imposed prohibitions on certain South African companies. But, according to the Mozambican Transport Ministry, two of these companies, Greyhound and City-to-City, did not even apply for a licence before starting services to Mozambique. The situation with Greyhound was quickly regularised, and it is now running daily coach services between Maputo and Johannesburg.

A third company, Vaal Maseru, was in dispute with the Mozambican authorities, because it attempted to use trailers which exceed the size limits laid down in Mozambican legislation.

The Mozambican side says such trailers would be dangerous on Mozambican roads.

Mozambican transport operators were infuriated by C-BRTA's ban, and threatened to blockade the road at Ressano Garcia, so that no South African vehicles would be able to enter Mozambique.

But on Saturday morning they dropped these plans after meeting with Transport Ministry officials, who urged them to avoid confrontation and give the negotiators a chance to produce a solution.

A total closure of the border would be disastrous for the Mozambican state, if only because of the enormous amount of customs duties collected every day at Ressano Garcia on imports from South Africa. Mozambican minibus operators who live in South Africa, were also furious at the C-BRTA ban. Their Johannesburg-based association, MoSadita, said the ban was the culmination of systematic South African violations of the transport agreements between the two countries.

The general secretary of MoSadita, Jose Nhancale, told AIM such unilateral action by C-BRTA could not be tolerated. He said the Mozambican government had every reason to ban the operations of City-to-City, since it had never honoured the bilateral agreement.

He added that the C-BRTA is also to blame since it allowed South African operators to cross into Mozambique without authorisation.