STATEMENT BY AMB. JUMA V. MWAPACHU, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY AND CHAIRPERSON OF THE COMESA-EAC-SADC TRIPARTITE TASK FORCE DURING THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE CHIRUNDU ONE STOP BORDER POST, 5TH DECEMBER 2009, CHIRUNDU, ZAMBIA-ZIMBABWE BORDER
Your Excellency, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe,
Your Excellency, Rupiah Bwezani Banda, President of Zambia,
Honourable Ministers,
Your Excellencies Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Heads of International and Regional Organizations,
Distinguished Representatives of DFID and JICA,
My colleagues, Sindiso Ngwenya and Dr. Tomaz Augusto Salomao, the CEOs of COMESA and SADC,
Invited Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am honoured and profoundly privileged as Chair of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force of Chief Executive officers to thank your Excellencies, our dear Heads of State, for your distinguished presence at this event of historic importance to our region and to Africa.
Your Excellencies,
This event marking the official Launch of the Chirundu One Stop Border Post, the first of its kind in Africa, is a lucid demonstration of the new dynamic in regional integration; a dynamic whose underlying ethos is the forward movement towards the realization of the African Economic Community.
Your Excellencies,
Our region, sparked by the vision and resolve of our political leaders in COMESA, SADC and the East African Community, is path breaking in collapsing the artificial national borders created by colonialism and taking revolutionary strides towards unleashing a new economic integration momentum. A higher growth and sustainable trajectory and indeed the economic liberation of the people of our regional crucially hinges on this dynamic political leadership and on the measures being unfolded of which this One Stop Border Post is only a small manifestation. The bigger resolve is what our leaders decided in October last year in Kampala, Uganda that COMESA-EAC and SADC proceed expeditiously to establish a Grand Free Trade Area followed by a Customs Union. Much headway has been realized on this front. Indeed as we meet here, all the Member States of our three Regional Communities are now reviewing concrete proposals which our Task Force led by the three CEOs have developed and tabled. Our plan is that our political leaders should by May next year pronounce themselves on the establishment of the Grand Free Trade Area.
Your Excellencies,
Within the framework of the Tripartite arrangements, there have been resolute efforts taken, even prior to the establishment of the Grand FTA, to address our region’s transport and logistics deficits. This is in the realization that supply side constraints distort our region’s costs of doing business and undermine our economic competitiveness. It is this realization that gave birth to the North-South Corridor Development Project within which the Chirundu One Stop Border Post is an inherent part. In April this year at Lusaka, the Tripartite Leadership supported by a number of close Development Partners, notably DFID, JICA, EU, World Bank, African Development Bank and Development Bank of Southern Africa, the North-South Corridor Project was able to attract USD1.2 billion in funding pledges. DBSA is raising an additional USD1.5 billion for the project.
Your Excellencies,
Years of cross-border trade experience around the world and not just in Africa have shown that the costs of doing business are invariably distorted where the efficiency of supply chains, both in exports and imports, is thwarted by poor facilitation at border points. A recent study report of the World Bank points out that in fact only 25% of the supply chain high costs are attributable to poor physical infrastructure. 75% of the cost distortion is contributed by what are described as soft infrastructure deficits. These are principally people-driven and related to cumbersome customs procedures, bureaucratic behavior and corruption. It is these trade facilitation deficits that the One Stop Border Posts seek to address. And this Chirundu One-Stop Border Post is in this vein a milestone project. A model whose success will constitute a huge case for replication around our COMESA-EAC-SADC region and Africa generally. We have every confidence that this Chirundu Project will significantly reduce supply chain transaction costs, spur higher trade flows and boost the competitiveness of our industries and agriculture.
Let me offer a real example. Currently, it takes 2-3 days for a haulage truck to cross the Chirundu Border point. If you consider that Chirundu handles an average of 268 trucks per day, this translates to a traffic volume of 96,840 trucks per annum, as a minimum. From our calculation, it costs each truck USD140 per day in fixed costs and Drivers’ time. Thus for 3 days, the cost per truck is US$420. This cost is saved by use of the Chirundu One Stop Border Posts because it is now estimated that each truck should not take more than 2 hours to cross and only 15 minutes for fast track pre-cleared traffic. In our estimation, the potential cost saving per annum is about USD486 million which accrues to our economies and leverages competitiveness.
Your Excellencies,
The advantages realized from the One Stop Border Post are not merely economic. They are also social and importantly so. Public health research in our broad region shows that there is close association between high incidences of HIV/AIDs transmission and delays in border crossings of haulage trucks. Chirundu and other planned One Stop Border Posts will contribute to a significant reduction in HIV/AIDs vulnerability in this important regional economic sector.
Your Excellencies,
Allow me to conclude by thanking DFID and JICA for their financial and technical support to this Chirundu Project. DFID and JICA are working closely with the Tripartite to develop other Transport Corridors in the COMESA-EAC-SADC region notably the Northern Corridor in Kenya and the Central Corridor in Tanzania. These corridors will further open up the economic spaces embracing Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern DRC.
Your Excellencies,
The Governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia have made a huge contribution to this Chirundu Project. The presence of Presidents Mugabe and Banda here today attests to their valued support of this One Stop Border Post Project. We hail this support and salute our comrade Presidents for their solidarity. Finally, special gratitude to Mr. Kingsley Chanda, the Manager and Coordinator of this One Stop Border Post Project. He has done a commendable job.
Your Excellencies,
Friends,
On behalf of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force, I have great honour to invite their Excellencies, President Robert Mugabe and President Rupiah Banda to address us and officially inaugurate the Chirundu One Stop Border Post.
I THANK YOU.