Border delays put the brake on intra-African trade

The delays, sometimes as long as three days, also create many opportunities for corruption, which further increases the cost of trade and harms investment in the region.

A paper produced by African Development Bank chief economist and vice-president Prof Mthuli Ncube says a border post can be defined as the location where one country's authority over goods and persons ends and another country's authority begins.

"It is the location where a multitude of government agencies are ... involved in the various document and goods controls, the calculation and collection of duties and taxes, as well as immigration.

"The multiplicity of those agencies operating on both sides of the same border doubles the bureaucracy ... which translates into congestion and delays (the waiting time for a container/truck to cross a border post in Africa ranges from three minutes to 2,8 days). The cumbersome procedures in customs processing can cost a consignment about US$185 for each day of delay."

In southern Africa, goods are transported along four major corridors involving Dar-es-Salaam, Walvis Bay, Beira, and the north-south corridor through Durban.

"The large number of border posts and roadblocks along those corridors and the inefficiency of the procedures are overwhelmingly costly to traders and businesses in the sub-region. For instance, traders/trucks have to wait about 36 hours at the SA-Zimbabwe border post (Beit Bridge). In southern Africa, customs delays cost the region about US$48m per year," Prof Ncube said.

He said that the customs environment in the regional grouping was characterised by a lack of coordination among the multiple government agencies on both sides of borders. This raised the common challenge of the duplication of procedures at each border post, which increased the potential for fraud.

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge