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An often impenetrable logjam of trucks laden with coal at South Africa’s crossing with Mozambique has brought chaos to a sleepy border town.
Elephants escaping from the nearby Kruger National Park often caused the biggest commotion in Komatipoort. These days residents check their CCTV cameras on their phones at barbecues on the weekend.
The congestion created opportunities for criminals who saw drivers stranded in the queue for days on end as easy targets after nightfall. Robberies, theft and assaults spread from the highway to the town. Road accidents increased.
The trucks began trundling through in ever greater numbers on their way to Maputo port, where their cargoes are loaded onto ships and sent around the world, after South Africa became one of Europe’s main alternatives to Russian coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The procession continues even though European fears of an energy crisis have faded for now. Suppliers are finding new buyers in India and China. And miners of chrome, used to manufacture stainless steel, are increasingly using the same routes.
“It’s worse than it’s ever been,” said Jan Engelbrecht, who heads Komatipoort’s business chamber, of the traffic, adding that he expects it to increase by more than 1 000 trucks a day to 3 000 a day by the end of 2024.
Residents want their quiet life back, and for companies including Glencore, Sasol, Thungela Resources and Exxaro Resources to move exports from pit to ports entirely by freight trains.
That’s not possible. Like the majority of state-owned companies in Africa’s most industrialised nation, Transnet Freight Rail is crumbling. – Bloomberg.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter