Business group Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) has written to Transport minister Fikile Mbalula requesting he makes changes to South Africa’s regulations around the transportation of logistics containers. According to BUSA, Regulation 224 (b) of the National Road Traffic Act currently prohibits the transportation of high cube containers on South African roads. “High cube containers constitute the overwhelming majority of containers currently manufactured and transported internationally – including in neighbouring states,” it said. “However, the combined height of a vehicle transporting a high cube container is currently 4.6 metres – 300mm above the legal limit.” Despite several years of industry engaging the Department of Transport on the matter, as well as moratoriums being issued, no progress has yet been forthcoming on fundamentally resolving the issue, the group said. “This regulatory anomaly puts South Africa’s trade and logistics regime out of step with international and regional realities and undermines the ease of doing business. BUSA is therefore calling on the Minister of Transport to urgently review the applicable regulation to permit the transportation of high cube containers on South African roads.” In view of South Africa’s sub-optimal levels of economic growth, investment, and employment, BUSA said that South Africa can ill afford such costly and time-consuming regulation of a sector so critical to the operations of a modern economy. Freight and logistics businesses in South Africa were particularly hard hit in 2021, due to ongoing global supply-chain and logistics issues. This was compounded by widespread opportunistic looting in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal which had a significant impact on business in the sector as billions rands in stock and property was destroyed, and key transportation routes were blocked. Discuss some of the key transport regulations mentioned in the above article.
Business group Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) has written to Transport minister Fikile Mbalula requesting he makes changes to South Africa’s regulations around the transportation of logistics containers. According to BUSA, Regulation 224 (b) of the National Road Traffic Act currently prohibits the transportation of high cube containers on South African roads. “High cube containers constitute the overwhelming majority of containers currently manufactured and transported internationally – including in neighbouring states,” it said. “However, the combined height of a vehicle transporting a high cube container is currently 4.6 metres – 300mm above the legal limit.” Despite several years of industry engaging the Department of Transport on the matter, as well as moratoriums being issued, no progress has yet been forthcoming on fundamentally resolving the issue, the group said. “This regulatory anomaly puts South Africa’s trade and logistics regime out of step with international and regional realities and undermines the ease of doing business. BUSA is therefore calling on the Minister of Transport to urgently review the applicable regulation to permit the transportation of high cube containers on South African roads.” In view of South Africa’s sub-optimal levels of
Discuss some of the key transport regulations mentioned in the above article.
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