Government decries transport sector hurdles
Minister of Transport and Public Works Francis Kasaila has said inefficiencies in the country’s logistics and transport sector is costing the country about 50 percent in transportation costs.
The minister said in today’s competitive world of trading between nations, efficiency of the supply of goods and services plays a key role in a country’s economic growth and development.
Kasaila said this in Blantyre on Friday during the graduation of students of Chattered Institute of Logistics and Transport (Cilt).
He said: “Transport cost significantly contributes to the landing cost of both imports and exports of any country. Crossing border [transport] presents many challenges such as border facilitation services, state of infrastructure along the supply chain, unsynchronised border working hours, all of which contribute to costs of trade.
“To mitigate the situation as a landlocked country, Malawi requires special skills from our young and upcoming professionals.”
A survey by Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in the road freight sector conducted in 2014 revealedthat Malawi’s transportation cost in the region is the highest with about 60 percent of the cost of production taken up by transportation costs.
Kasaila said government is actively pursuing a number of initiatives to improve infrastructure for trade facilitation.
“Government has approved an increase in the fuel levy for the road sector so that we keep our roads in good condition all the time and consequently reduce travel time as well as implementing one border post project under trade and transport facilitation programme. This will lead to reduced time in managing clearing operations at our border posts,” he said.
Kasaila said government has prioritised rehabilitation of rail infrastructure with the opening of Nacala corridor and feasibility studies on Nkaya-Mchinji and Sena corridor are underway.
In his remarks, Cilt president StallardMpata urged government to fully utilise the projects being implemented in the sector for maximum economic benefit.
“Malawi has made major projects in the transport and railway sectors with the expansion of road networks and the railway line in addition to the implementation of the electronic processing of transit goods at the borders through Dedza, Karonga and Mchinji.
“For all intended purposes, our cost of internal trade should be coming down due to infrastructure that Malawi government has put in place,” he said.
But Mpata said Malawi is making minimal progress in utilising the railway sector which he said over the years has developed and could have taken the economy to the next level.
