Trucks stuck at border posts

BabuK · 2012-08-30T15:46:01+00:00

Owners say business is suffering Appeal to government for solution The Tanzania Truck Owners Association (TATOA) has urged the government to open more gates at all borders to facilitate truck movement in order to improve turnaround. They made the call in Dar es Salaam yesterday at a meeting with the Minister for Industries and Trade Dr Abdallah Kigoda, who was accompanied by the acting permanent secretary in the ministry of East Africa Cooperation, George Lauwo. TATOA Chairman Seif Ali Seif said while business with neighbouring countries such as Zambia, DRC, Rwanda and Burundi is growing rapidly and transporters in the country have invested in the business to tap the potential, the operating structure of the borders has not been optimised to facilitate efficient movement of trucks. He cited Tunduma border where he said truck movement was a major hurdle, saying: "The border post has been designed to serve only 50 trucks per day, but today more than 350 to 400 trucks are crossing that point daily." He said the border post has only one gate to serve all the trucks, forcing driversto spend between five and seven days at the post before their trucks are allowed through, said Seif. He said additional time lost in the clearance system at the border put the country's transport operators at a business disadvantage and actually led to economic losses due to increasing operating cost. TATOA proposed opening ten gates at Tunduma border point instead of the current single gate. "Among the 10 gates, we propose that two be for passengers, three for dangerous goods such as petroleum products which by their nature are not allowed to stay for longer hours and the remaining five gates for containerized cargo,'' he said. Of the five gates for containerised cargo, three gates can serve outgoing vehicles while two cater for incoming vehicles. Also he begged the Government to widen the Dar es salaam Port in order to increase its efficiency in providing services together with crosschecking the standard of the vehicles which carry international goods as some of them are below standard. "As a result they are contributing to rise in road accidents. For example last year a total of 19,285 people died from road accidents, 94890 due to more than one hundred thousand road accidents,'' he said. For his part, Lauwo said the there is a need for political consensus between Tanzania and Zambia problem, since the building of the gates should involve not only Tunduma but also Nakonde in Zambia. Minister Kigoda said even the Zambia government has experienced the same problem and through their Minister for Industry they sent a letter to him promising that they will take appropriate measures to solve the issue. "I agree with you that there is a problem at Tunduma border post. I have received a letter from my Zambia counterpart stating the problem at the border. I am happy to receive your views. This is what I want. The government in general working under the Public Private partnership (PPP) arrangement," the minister said. SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Thread starter BabuK
Start date Aug 30, 2012

BabuK

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Trucks stuck at border posts

BabuK

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