Infrastructure improvements to ease cross-border trade and freight congestion
Upgrading work at six of South Africa’s major land border posts will begin before the end of the year following the successful conclusion of a public-private partnership (PPP) bidding process, Border Management Authority (BMA) commissioner Dr Michael Masiapato has confirmed.
With the exception of Lebombo on the N4 Maputo Corridor into Mozambique, the targeted borders are with landlocked trading partners and include Beitbridge with Zimbabwe, Kopfontein with Botswana, Oshoek with Eswatini, as well as Maseru and Ficksburg on the Lesotho border.
Masiapato said it was encouraging that the long-anticipated infrastructure upgrades by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI), for which requests for proposals were issued in 2023, were finally moving ahead.
He added that the upgrading of Ficksburg could not be shifted to another border such as Groblersbrug on the Copperbelt Corridor into Botswana, despite calls from the cross-border road freight industry to prioritise congestion-prone crossings.
This is despite mounting pressure from transport operators who argue that transit capacity at the Limpopo River crossing at Groblersbrug requires urgent attention due to rising freight volumes, compared with significantly lower traffic levels at Ficksburg.
“We never anticipated that Groblersbrug would become so busy,” Masiapato said, attributing the trend to transporters increasingly avoiding Beitbridge because of high costs and transit challenges experienced in Zimbabwe.
Although the BMA considered shifting upgrade work planned for Kopfontein to Groblersbrug, the proposal was ultimately rejected by the DPWI. “The technical people said it can’t be done because planning for the upgrades had already been finalised,” Masiapato said, adding that environmental and socio-economic impact assessments, along with design work, had already been completed.
He emphasised that freight operators serving the Copperbelt route through Botswana to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo should take comfort from recent reforms at National Treasury aimed at accelerating infrastructure delivery.
“The good news is, it is no longer going to take 10 years,” Masiapato said, referring to the prolonged delays since the need for border upgrades was first identified. “Treasury has refined the processes for PPP. They have relaxed the bureaucracy and the red tape.”
Masiapato noted that as soon as capacity allows, upgrading work at Groblersbrug would be fast-tracked. The border, which was closed twice last year after the Limpopo River burst its banks following heavy rainfall, could be significantly improved through the construction of a flyover bridge above the floodwater line.
Private-sector stakeholders, including Mike Fitzmaurice of the Transit Assistance Bureau, have confirmed that replacing the single-lane bridge towards the Martin’s Drift Border Post in Botswana is crucial to addressing near-constant bottlenecks at the crossing.
However, Masiapato cautioned that funding remains a major constraint. He said such a project would likely need to be financed by a revenue-generating state-owned entity such as the BMA, which is currently limited by insufficient funds to fulfil its mandate.
“There is no money for such a bridge, so we will have to look at PPP alternatives to make it happen. But that might entail having a tollgate on such a bridge which, in turn, translates into a non-tariff barrier to trade.”
Speculation that the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) had existing plans for a flyover bridge at Groblersbrug has since been dismissed. Sanral media relations officer Lwando Mahlasela clarified that, “The bridge in question is not a Sanral asset. Sanral cannot comment on infrastructure developments that fall outside of its jurisdiction,” referring to the border control zone at Groblersbrug.