Mozambique and South Africa discuss transport security

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Mozambique and South Africa discuss transport security

4:57 CAT | 28 Feb 2023

Photo: O País

Mozambique and South Africa are meeting in Maputo to find solutions to road safety on the Maputo-South Africa corridor, which remains tense, with passenger transport to Durban interrupted. Transport operators are demanding concrete measures before resuming activity.

In the current wave of vehicle-burning in South Africa, thirteen vehicles with Mozambican license plates have already been set on fire, ten belonging to private individuals and three carrying passengers.

Luciano Muiambo, commonly known as ‘Majugar’, was one of the first to lose his bus on the Durban-Maputo route and speaks of enormous damage. “Great damage. It suffices to say that I started working with that [burned] vehicle last December, and a new bus I bought in December only made three trips. I lost four-and-a-half million rands there. At the moment, we are at a standstill. The South Africans are operating on their own, while our government says nothing,” he complains.

President of the International Transport Association, Frederico Ambrósio also had a vehicle burned, on February 11th. “It is irreparable damage. Even if one day I get money and buy another vehicle, it is not possible to repair it. But then again, it’s an accident at work, it happens,” Ambrósio reasoned.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications, through the national director of Transport and Security, Fernando Ouana, says that insecurity is outside Mozambique’s control, and that it is up to the South Africans to guarantee the normal functioning of the corridors.

“We are doing our part and we also demand that the South African government does its. For our part, we have our safe corridors; I can confirm that, and the South African side must also keep the corridors safe,” Ouana said.

A representative of the South African Police Emergency Response Services says that work is underway at several levels to solve the problem. “We are involving the entire target audience, and are in the process of establishing identification on main roads. The idea is to raise visibility, and we are sure that we will reduce the incident rates that have been seen,” the source said.

The two-day bilateral meeting of the Joint Committee and Mozambique–South Africa route management groups is taking place in Maputo, with the aim of identifying answers to the various problems besetting the sector recently.

By Amandio Borges

Source: O País