Electronic single window puts Beitbridge in fast lane

Thupeyo Muleya-Beitbridge Bureau

The Government’s move to remove regional and international trade barriers through the Beitbridge port of entry has gained momentum, with more importers and exporters now making use of the recently launched Zimbabwe Electronic Single Window (ZESW) platform.

The concept was introduced in 2022 as part of measures to enhance clearance of legitimate traffic and trade facilitation at the country’s ports of entry.

ZESW’s main objective is to improve trade facilitation and to achieve efficiency to boost revenue collection, enforcement of trade laws, social protection, and providing business intelligence to the Government.

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) as the lead agency, is rolling out the project in phases and providing the coordination and harmonisation of clearance processes and introduced the concept at Beitbridge on May 16.

Currently there are 22 border agencies at major ports of entry, including Beitbridge, whose operations are being merged and streamlined under the ZESW.

The facility enhances the ease of doing business as outlined in the Trading Across Borders concept.

 “Awareness workshops and training were conducted for all stakeholders who are involved in the clearance process of port health controlled goods.

“These included ZIMRA staff, port health officials, transporters, customs clearing agents and funeral parlours from both Zimbabwe and South Africa,” said ZIMRA’s corporate communications executive, Mr Gladman Njanji.

“Beitbridge stakeholders responded overwhelmingly to this initiative as it is expected to reduce the turnaround time of documents processing, enable them to lodge their documents electronically from the comfort of their offices, plug revenue leakages hence increasing revenue collections and to provide additional convenience to clients.”

He said the number of documents lodged into the system have gradually been increasing on a weekly basis compared to those at Forbes Border Post and Robert Mugabe International Airport, where the system was first rolled out.

Mr Njanji said in the few days between May 16 and May 28 following its launch, a total of 84 import bills of entries and 89 entries in transit were pre-lodged into the ZESW at Beitbridge, while Forbes had 10 imports entries and nothing on transit and RGM International Airport recorded only 16 import entries in the same week.

During the same period, Beitbridge conducted 77 human remains inspections online that were coming into the country and five which were in transit through Zimbabwe.

At Forbes there were 13 inspections on human remains and one in transit, with the RGM Airport processing 267 arriving human remains and 14 leaving via Zimbabwe using the same facility.

“The clearing agents welcomed the initiative as it allows them to centralise their operations because the new system allows capturing and submission of information electronically without having to leave their offices to physically visit port health or ZIMRA offices.”

In addition, they believed that the project should be implemented at all ports of entry and for all border stakeholders.

Mr Njanji said funeral parlours, especially those based in South Africa, were delighted with the functionality of the single window platform.

The platform now allows them to pre-lodge their documents and pay electronically before dispatching the human remains to the border and this also gives the port health officers enough time to plan.

According to ZIMRA’s head of compliance and automation, Mr Adrian Swarres, the facility allows parties involved in trade facilitation to lodge standardised information and documents electronically with a single entry point to fulfil all import, export, and transit related regulatory requirements.

He said so far, they were implementing the Ministry of Health and Child Care’s port health module in the ZESW.

This was first rolled out and implemented at Forbes Border Post in September last year and in November last year it was also rolled out and implemented at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport. 

The Herald is reliably informed that the first phase of the ZESW saw an intensive mapping exercise and integration of all key processes on the single window platform.

The major beneficiaries of the single window initiative will be importers and exporters, shipping and freight forwarders, funeral parlours, the transport sector and customs administration.

Government departments and agencies, whose mandate includes the movement of food, drugs, health, agricultural-related products, and environment are gradually being incorporated in the ZESW facility.

Under this programme, clients and stakeholders will not be moving from one agency to another as all the regulatory and transitory services will be house under a single platform .

Processes and payments will now be done online through a single platform, thus faster, better, and transparent. We urge our clients to fully embrace this programme as we continue to minimise or cut on service delivery bottlenecks.

In addition, where it is in use, the ZESW is helping address compliance related challenges, boosting efficient and productive use of resources, and the enhanced collection of fees, duties, and penalties.