If our future lies in Africa, why is the rest of the continent still so far away?
THERE'S an informal free monetary area between South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Illegal immigrants from Mozambique ship rands home to their families.
The rands are exchanged for goods along the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border from where they travel down via Beit Bridge to the Northern Province, where they are used to buy products from South African shops, which are then taken back across the border to be sold.
Meanwhile, Mozambican authorities are bitter about the fact that South Africa asks for payment of fees for visa applications in US dollars.
So while most of Europe and the USA enjoy the privilege of free entry to this country, Africa pays substantially.
Why? This is, after all, the new South Africa. Zimbabwe and Mozambique paid dearly for their friendship with the ANC and their enmity with apartheid. One would have expected that friendship to have led to a formal opening of borders and subsequent flourishing of trade.
In fact, trade is flourishing, but of the illegal sort. Case in point: the R70 million worth of stolen cars that found their way across the border to Zimbabwe a year ago.
And the illegal immigrants that are hauled by bus across the KwaZulu Natal border back to Mozambique simply return via another hole in the fence.
Informal trade from the Stanger area extends to Tanzania and Madagascar. In the case of Dar-es-Salaam, goods travel by road. Central Africa is just three non-stop days away.
So why has the government not extended open arms to the rest of Africa?
Zimbabwean and Mozambican political commentators appear to share a belief that it is Mangosuthu Buthelezi in his capacity as Minister of Home Affairs that has dictated this policy.
In an article in Southern Africa Political and Economic Monthly headlined "The Bully on the Bloc", a former executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was quoted as saying: "You have a minister of home affairs taking measures against citizens from the region that are worse than those taken during the apartheid era."
This view is probably too simplistic. Were the ANC so inclined, opening up border posts would be a simple parliamentary decision.
Government commitment to SADC has been high on the public agenda. But in practice, SADC has been a disaster with a huge number of projects still in planning after many years and a freeze on new projects.
Not surprisingly then, the R1-billion Maputo Development Corridor project, which will build a superhighway from that port to Witbank and upgrade port facilities, was contracted without the participation of SADC.
SADC members are rumoured to be upset about this. They are not the only ones who should be concerned. KwaZulu Natal will see a sizeable portion of shipping diverted to Maputo from Richards Bay. This will lessen the ANC's dependence on the Inkatha-controlled province. A quarter century ago, almost 50% of our exports were channelled via the then Lourenco Marques. There's no reason why this should not happen again.
And traffic via Maputo will be much cheaper, not just because of the shorter distance, but also because Mozambique has an un-unionised and desperate workforce. (Cosatu, are you listening?)
Some SADC countries have other reasons to be concerned. A free trade agreement between South Africa and the European Community will significantly affect income to members of the Southern African Customs Union. In the case of Lesotho, this will mean a drop of 50% of their Gross Domestic Product.
What does this mean? Simply that South Africa is the economic superpower of the sub-continent. Our economy is five times the size of all 11 other countries combined. And this has resulted in our subsidising other members of SACU.
With that subsidy withdrawn, Lesotho will collapse. In the long term, that country may be forced to become the 10th province of the new South Africa.
Does this explain why Botswana is sinking US $100 million into 15 Canadian fighter bombers, 50 German tanks, and 200 Dutch troop carriers?