admintravellers were aborting their journeys to that country.
Investigations by this paper reveal that people are spending between three and six hours for them to enter or leave South Africa.
Zimbabwe’s assistant regional immigration officer in charge of southern region (Beitbridge), Mr Charles Gwede said yesterday that they had engaged their counterparts over the delays and congestion and they had promised to beef up staff.
“We have been continually engaging our colleagues and are hopeful that the situation will improve soon. They indicated to us that they are thin in terms of manpower and that they will get more hands with effect from June 14.
“We are much seized with the matter and we will continue to review progress. Basically we have agreed to speed up the flow of traffic on both sides of the border,” said Mr Gwede.
The travellers are blaming the South African immigration department for taking a casual approach in light of an increase in traffic.
It has also emerged that some of the travellers were being denied entry into that country ostensibly for not having sufficient funds to sustain their visits.
Others were being sent back for complaining about the state of affairs at the border post.
Ironically the travellers are being cleared on the Zimbabwean side of the border where travellers are spending less than 30 minutes at the border post. This includes those leaving and entering the country.
There are 10 computer units on the Zimbabwean side of the border which are used for processing both arrivals and departures while South Africa has 46 for the same purpose.
Long static winding queues have become a common feature on both sides of the South African border (arrivals and departure).
Beitbridge Border post is one of the busiest inland ports in Sub-Saharan Africa where an average of 10 000 access it daily.
The number rises to 25 000 during peak times and the festive season.
It is understood that things got worse in the neighbouring country when several immigration officers were sent for a 12-month in-house training soon after the Easter holidays resulting in the remaining officers failing to cope with the workload.
The officers are undergoing the training programme in batches.
South Africa’s spokesman for the Border Operations Coordinating Committee Mr Calvin Mulaudzi could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Online Reporter