By Kalata News,
Chipata – THE Zambia Border Posts Upgrading Project (ZBPUP) today conducted a media tour of the Mwami-Mchinji One Stop Border Post (OSBP) as part of the on-going media sensitisation workshop.
Leading the tour in the City of Chipata, about 550 km East of Lusaka, Director of Trade in the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry (MCTI), Dr. Simon Ngona said the visit to the Mwami and Mchinji border post was to showcase to the journalists the successful operations of a one stop border post.
A One Stop Border Post is a type of Border where all officials from both countries sit in one building and attend to both cargo and pedestrians crossing the border. This enables those crossing to only stop once or in one place for them to complete all border formalities.
“Before the coming of One Stop Border Posts, crossings by vehicles especially cargo trucks, used to take a long time resulting in the increased costs to businesses due to time spent and damage to goods at the borders,” explained Dr. Ngona.
Dr. Ngona said the media sensitization workshops were part of the Zambia Border Posts Upgrading Project planned activities as agreed between the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry and the project partners.
Speaking after the conducted tour, journalists observed that the Border facility was modern infrastructure that catered for the needs of both pedestrian and commercial cross border traders.
They noted that the traders spoken to all expressed satisfaction at the pace at which their goods and services were cleared at the border.
“The fact that the Border Post operates 24 hrs has enhanced the relationships between the people of Chipata (Zambia) and Mchinji. One can enter Malawi and have his supper there and return to Zambia to sleep and vice versa,” said Julius Phiri from Times of Zambia.
Another journalist Mwango Chileshe from Radio Phoniex said the tour of the OSBP has answered a lot of questions on how Zambia was performing in terms of balance of trade and what goods were being exported.
Mwango said, “This tour was able to demonstrate, even without us being given revenue figures, that Mwami Border is an export border that is facilitating Zambia’s exports.”
The journalists however were concerned at the slow pace the Malawian side of the border was dealing with Zambian trucks.
They observed the offloading of cargo from trucks for examination, a process they said was delaying the entry of Zambia’s goods and services into Malawi.
They urged for the introduction of scanners and technology on both sides of the OSBP so goods are cleared without their cargo having to the offloaded.
Another concern was the seemingly empty offices on the Zambian side that if not handled properly will make the building become a white elephant.
The ZBPUP is a 6.8 million Euro funded regional integration project by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) through the European Union (EU) 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Programme grant to support trade facilitation programmes between Zambia and its neighbours.
So far two media sensitisation works have taken place with the first meeting being held in Lusaka in March, 2022 and attended by about 18 journalists and some editors.
Twenty-seven journalists drawn from various major local and national media based in Lusaka and Chipata are attending the Chipata Sensitization Workshop.
