The Botswana Dry port which is managed by Sea Rail Botswana is undergoing a facelift at its premises at the Port of Walvis Bay. The relationship between Botswana and Namport was birthed out of an agreement which was signed between the Namibian and Botswanan governments through the Ministry of Works and Transport of Namibia in 2009.
The Botswanan government in 2012 appointed Sea Rail which is a subsidiary company of Botswana Railways that operates the dry port facility at the Port of Walvis Bay. The Dry port offers container handling, vehicle handling and warehousing services for its clientele.
Dry Port Manager, Mr Derick Mokgatle, said “that the dry port is here to not only serve a wide customer base but more importantly to compliment the Namibian Government’s efforts in becoming a logistics hub for the Southern African Development Community (SADC). All these envisaged developments came as a result of the good working relationship enjoyed by Namport and us”.
The Dry Port is currently in the process of upgrading its facilities and will soon commission 40 reefer plug points at the end of this month. The commissioning of these reefer points is in line with the dry port’s vision of being a one stop shop for all its users. A reefer container which is a short form for refrigerated container are big fridges that are used to transport temperature controlled cargoes such as fruits, meat, fish, seafood, vegetables and dairy.
For a port to have such facilities simply means that the ability of such port to handle a variety of cargo translating into better service delivery increases.
As Namibia is a member of SADC and thus in compliance to the SADC Protocol which calls for member states to work together harmoniously in achieving effective results on common problems and issues, the country entered into agreements with Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe to avail these three land-linked countries a portion of land at the Port of Walvis Bay to enable them to conduct sea-borne trade.
SOURCE: Namport