Road Freight Association CEO Gavin Kelly has called on SA authorities to step in and help Mozambique resolve its ongoing civil unrest, warning that suspended operations at the Port of Maputo cost the SA economy millions each day.
Protests on the Mozambican side of the Lebombo border post have been ongoing since the results of the country’s disputed elections were released on October 24 and have forced the closure of the crossing several times since.
The Road Freight Association estimates SA’s economy loses R10m each day that the Maputo port is closed and any road freight logistics within Mozambique are suspended, with about R6m in direct losses to freight logistics providers.
“Our drivers, our trucks, our customers’ cargo, the business image of thousands of African businesses are all threatened day after day,” Kelly said.
“Drivers are beaten (and they have nothing to do with the political landscape in Mozambique), trucks are looted, burnt, roads to the Port of Maputo blockaded and the very port itself placed under siege.”
The remaining R4m is lost in other sectors who rely on road freight transport through the corridor, with the mining industry being particularly vulnerable.
South32 announced on Tuesday a decision to withdraw its production guidance for Mozal Aluminium, citing the impact of civil unrest on transporting raw materials to the operation.
“It is clear that without the road freight route to the Port of Maputo, through Lebombo, many SA mining companies face a bleak future,” Kelly said.
With SA’s own ports and rail systems experiencing persistent challenges, Kelly said the Maputo port, which “has now been effectively cut off by the political unrest and continuing protests,” was many industries’ only alternative.
Kelly called for a statesperson to “explain to Mozambique that our country is suffering and that there needs to be a resolve to agree on the way forward”.
In the meantime, he said the corridor to the Maputo port must be secured “at all costs and by any means”.
Transport minister Barbara Creecy told eNCA that Mozambican authorities planned to indefinitely close the Lebombo border again on Monday due to civil unrest.
On Saturday, protests forced the shutdown of two power stations near the SA border, causing electricity shortages across the south of the country and in neighbouring Zambia.
At least 103 people have been killed in protests so far, according to the Mozambican election monitoring group Plataforma Eleitoral Decide.
“In the past week there has been an inevitable and slow progression towards the reality that ravaged Mozambique in the early 1970s — a destructive civil war that left the country in ruins with a desperate population hanging on to life,” Kelly said.
He warned that without the intervention of a statesperson, Mozambique would slip closer to this scenario, meaning any form of goods and passengers would be blocked from going in or out of the country.
“That means less jobs, higher unemployment, hunger and all those other ‘small’ things that go hand-in-hand with a collapsing economy. One business at a time — so an economy collapses, and we have seen enough of that in Africa already,” he said.
The Road Freight Association called on anyone with connections, the status or the ability to intervene to step up and play the role of statesperson, saying; “this is about Mozambique, SA and the Sadc [Southern African Development Community] region”.
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