adminThe assistant regional immigration manager-in-charge of Beitbridge Border Post, Mr Charles Gwede, said the volume of both human and vehicular traffic was on the increase on both entry and exit sides.
“We continue to witness an upsurge in the volume of traffic and the number of people passing through the Beitbridge Border Post and we anticipate the numbers to further increase between tomorrow and the early hours of Christmas as more Zimbabweans working in South Africa flock into the country,” said Mr Gwede.
“Unlike in the past few days, we have also noted that there has been a sharp increase on the departure side and this is largely because several people are now rushing to South Africa to do their Christmas shopping while others are simply going there to spend the holiday.”
In separate interviews, travellers said the queues were moving faster on the Zimbabwean border unlike on the South African side where queues of cars awaiting clearance reportedly stretched for more than five kilometres.
“Immigration officers at the Zimbabwe border are much faster in clearing travellers than their South African counterparts. We actually spent two hours in the queue. Can you imagine after having travelled a distance of about five hours and you are further subjected to delays at the border? Surely something must be done to address this challenge, which has since turned into a perennial problem,” said Mrs Mirirai Moyo of Nkulumane in Bulawayo.
Another injiva, Mr Michael Mdlongwa who is based in Pretoria echoed Moyo’s sentiments: “There has been a tremendous improvement in the clearance of travellers on the Zimbabwean side unlike in the previous years when we would spend several hours at the border resulting in some travellers approaching touts for assistance and in the process losing their money.
“We, however, urge authorities to address the clearance systems at Zimra as we are subjected to unnecessary searches resulting in delays.”
Ms Molly Muleya, a Beitbridge resident who intended to travel to Musina had to cancel the trip owing to the long queues.
“I wanted to cross to Musina today to shop for a few items for Christmas, but I couldn’t stand the long queues hence I had to cancel the trip. I will do my shopping at home and surely as regular travellers we urge both Zimbabwe and South African governments to come up with a permanent solution to this issue of border congestion,” she said.
Beitbridge is reportedly the busiest inland port of entry in sub-Saharan Africa, which handles a huge volume of traffic mostly commercial vehicles including those destined for neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo passing through daily.
On average the border handles about 10 000 travellers daily with the figures going up during the peak period such as the festive season.
As a de-congestion strategy, the Department of Immigration has also created additional counters in which travellers can also utilise the cubicles situated outside the immigration hall.
Mr Gwede said they had since suspended leave and off-days for their staff in a move aimed at speeding up the clearance of travellers during the festive period.
“As part of our decongestion drive we have re-arranged our shifts to ensure that we have more officers per shift so that we are able to effectively manage the queue and speed up the clearance process.
“We also got additional personnel from other less busy stations to beef up our staff complement and assist in dealing with the influx of travellers as well as ensuring that all our check points and counters are adequately manned,” he said.
Online Reporter