02 May 2022

Trans Kalahari Corridor (TKC) plays a pivotal role of facilitating  trade within the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) region. 

 The corridor secretariat executive director, Mr Leslie Mpofu said this during the panel discussion on Enhancing Competitiveness of  the Trading Environment in the  SACU region.

 He stated that the corridor performance was key in trade facilitation, hence the importance of developing a robust trade facilitation programme that seek to support effective trade  and eventually lower transport costs. 

Transport operators and traders, he said opted for routes based on key performance of corridors which included related operating costs, cargo travel time, predictability of transit, reliability of important services along the corridor, safety and security as well as ‘hospitability’ of the route.  

However, he said that there were other constraints that hindered trade facilitation such as transit time at ports, border delays at main crossings, unharmonised regulations and lengthy documentation such as cargo clearance procedures. 

“Other constraints include challenges associated with ICT connectivity as well trade imbalance that is; the fact that transporters struggle to secure a return trip load.  Other challenges are  related to infrastructure that may not be up to standard or completely missing such as railways and communication,” he said.

Mr Mpofu stated that transportation costs in Africa remained the highest in the world thus resulting in the transaction  costs in  general  being  very  heavy on traders who then transmit such costs to consumers. 

“The Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) estimates  that corridor inefficiencies in the  African Regional Transport Infrastructure Network cost over US$75 billion(P780 million) per annum,”  he said .

TKC secretariat  is  a  tripartite  trans-boundary  corridor  management  institution  established with economic vision to pursue or contribute towards deeper regional integration programmes of both  SACU and SADC. It manages road corridor which stretches 1 900 kilometers from the Walvis Bay(Namibia) to Gauteng (South Africa) via Botswana. BOPA