BuaNews (Tshwane)
Gcina Ntsaluba
17 January 2008
Nelspruit — By next year, there should be a 24-hour, one-stop border post between Mpumalanga and Mozambique.
Chief Operating Officer of the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative (MCLI), Barbara Mommen, says the existing Lebombo/Ressano Garcia border post was not designed to carry the current large volumes of cargo and passenger traffic.
"The implementation of the 24 joint one-stop border post in 2009 will go a long way towards addressing both the infrastructure, processing and congestion constraints."
Over the festive season, there was a 25 percent increase in the number of passengers who crossed the border compared to December 2006.
Altogether 580 116 passengers crossed the border in December 2007 compared to 465 600 people in December 2006.
The new one-stop border post will be built to ensure that there is enough space for the movement of both passengers and freight trucks.
Ms Mommen said that currently, the processing of documentation in the two customs departments was also not consistent.
"The speed of processing seems to depend on the capacity of staff on shift at the time," she explained.
She said there was a great need for customs documentation and processes to be harmonised before the one-stop border post could open.
Ms Mommen said the fact that truck drivers have to have their passports processed by the two immigration departments also adds to the congestion.
The one-stop border post will be built at a cost of R600 million and include separate facilities to process passengers, rail and commercial cargo traffic.
Cargo traffic will be processed at a site 4km inside the Mozambican border known as KM4. This site will be managed by the relevant border authorities from South Africa and Mozambique to ensure that processing documentation is efficient and user friendly.
The creation of a one-stop border post featured as a high priority on the agenda of the South Africa-Mozambique Heads of State Economic Bilateral Commission held in Pretoria in September 2007.
Tenders for the construction will go out early this year to meet the completion deadline to mid-2009.
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