The poor state of the roads leading to the interland countries from Sofala province is one of the main causes of the loss of cargo handled at the Port of Beira.

According to the President of the Commercial Association of Beira (ACB), Félix Machado, this year, more than 500,000 tons stopped transiting from the Port of Beira and went to the interland countries via the Port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

"We are losing cargo to Dar es Salaam. This year more than 500,000 tons have already been diverted to Dar es Salaam. Even fertilizer for Zimbabwe is being unloaded in Dar es Salaam. So there is inefficiency in our corridors that we can't hide," he said.

Machado criticizes the "false optimists" who boast of slight growth in the port's operations when it could more than triple its earnings.

"Although many optimists, in the negative sense, say that the statistics improved last year, by up to five percent, I say that they could [improve] by 20 percent. People take these figures as if they were a positive performance by our runners. No, it's wrong," he said, during an event where he spoke about transportation and logistics.

On the other hand, Machado believes that bureaucratic and customs complexity, due to the existence of several "little companies" that encourage corruption in the clearance of cargo and increase the cost of cargo, scares cargo away from the Port of Beira.

"If these institutions are important, we'll review their structure. But in the other corridors, these services and these little companies don't exist. Either the money goes to the government or we don't charge it. But what is the government's responsibility, we end up creating 'Félix Machado' companies," he said.

The solution to leveraging the logistics and transportation sector, according to the president of the Beira Trade Association, is for the government and the private sector to join forces and clearly define what the country wants, from costs and benefits to the elimination of bureaucracy and corruption.

"It seems that there are different ideas because there are several players. Everyone wants to pull for their own side. In the end there's no mutual understanding, and these problems arise," he said.

The Mozambican Railways say that efforts are continuing to increase freight transport capacity, safety and cargo flow, especially on the Machipanda line, in coordination with its Zimbabwean counterpart.

"Mozambique has already done its part up to Machipanda station. On the Zimbabwe side there are some challenges. And because of the good relations between the two railways, we have been making improvements on the Zimbabwean side, where cargo flow is necessary," said Hedie Soberano, representative of Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique.

(Source: STV)