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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
The Department of Immigration says it is ready to deal with an anticipated surge in both human and vehicular traffic at Beitbridge Border Post during the Easter holidays.
Acting immigration officer-in-charge of Beitbridge Mr Innocent Hamandishe on Tuesday said they had deployed adequately and were ready to roll.
“We have come up with a raft of measures to ensure the smooth flow of traffic,” he said.
“We have a staff complement of 71 immigration officers, which is adequate to deal with an increase in the volume of both human and vehicular traffic.
“We received 26 permanent immigration officers in December and we are more than ready to roll. Traffic has since been separated into buses, returning residents, visitors, transit, motorist and commercial. Further, we are going to be opening up more clearing points outside the main immigration hall,” he added.
Mr Hamandishe said they had since aligned operations with their South African counterparts for the period March 27 to April 13.
He said they were also assured of total support from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), the police and the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara)with regards to the efficient clearance of traffic.
Those travelling in buses will be assisted through the tagging system (cleared on first come first served basis). We will be having Zimra officers and the police at all our outside counters where people will be cleared once for passage through the border post,” said Mr Hamandishe.
He said they had also created an express route for motorists who wanted to access gate passes from Zinara.
Mr Hamandishe said travellers would be directed according to the various service points as they enter the border post.
He said they had suspended all off and leave days for their employees to ensure that they operated at full strength throughout the holidays.
Beitbridge Border Post is one of the busiest ports of entry in the Sadc region with around 170 000 travellers, 2 100 buses, 14 000 to 15 000 haulage trucks and 25 000 private cars passing through the border on a monthly basis.
Online Reporter