Kampala — The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Cooperation (SADC) member states have opened the first-ever one stop border post (OSBP) facility that will increase the region's trade and reduce cross border delays by up to 50%.

The post, located 728 kilometers south of the Zambian capital, Lusaka, is one of the busiest inland border crossings in southern and eastern Africa, with an average of 270 haulage trucks a day carrying goods across the continent.

It was opened by Zambian President Rupiah Banda and and the function was also attended by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and the EAC Secretary General Ambassador Juma Mwapachu.

Amb. Mwapachu said the project was planned after realizing that the supply side constraints distort the region's costs of doing business and undermine our economic competitiveness.

He said that within the framework of the tripartite arrangements, there have been resolute efforts taken, even prior to the establishment of the grand free trade area to address the region's transport and logistics deficits.

"Hence the establishment of the North-South Corridor Development Project within which the Chirundu is an inherent part," he said at the opening ceremony.

In April this year at Lusaka, the leaders from the three blocks countries supported by DFID, JICA, EU, World Bank, African Development Bank and Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), the North-South Corridor Project was able to attract $1.2 billion in funding pledges and the DBSA is raising an additional $1.5 billion for the project.

"Cross-border trade experience has shown that the costs of doing business are invariably distorted where the efficiency of supply chains, both in exports and imports, is thwarted by poor facilitation at border points," Mwapachu noted.

A recent report of the World Bank points out that only 25% of the supply chain high costs are attributable to poor physical infrastructure, 75% of the cost distortion is contributed by soft infrastructure deficits.

Currently, it takes 2-3 days for a haulage truck to cross the Chirundu border point but the post handles an average of 268 trucks per day, this translates to a traffic volume of 96,840 trucks per annum, as a minimum. "From our calculation, it costs each truck $140 per day in fixed costs and drivers' time and the cost per truck for three days $420 but this will be saved as each truck will now spend not more than two hours to cross and only 15 minutes for fast track pre-cleared traffic.

In our estimation, the potential cost saving per annum is about USD486 million which accrues to our economies and leverages competitiveness.

Sao in an attempt to scale down the long delays of clearing goods at the Zambia-Zimbabwe border post, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), together with governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe recently embarked on a joint exercise to establish a the post.

COMESA Director for infrastructure Amos Marawa said the post which is part of the North-South Corridor, a trade route aiming to interlink Africa's trade network through the COMESA-EAC-SADC region, is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), PTA Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

He said the post will act as a pilot for several other border posts in the tripartite region.

"COMESA has been the lead regional grouping on this border post due to its proximity; the other two regional economic communities in the tripatite will lead on the development of other border posts," Marawa said.

EAC will lead along the Northern corridor where the one top border post is scheduled to open at the Malaba Uganda/Kenya border. It is expected that SADC will be the lead organisation in the implementation of the Beit-Bridge post on the South Africa/Zimbabwe border.

Mwapachu revealed that DFID and JICA are working closely with the Tripartite to develop other Transport Corridors in the COMESA-EAC-SADC region.