Chronicle Editor
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
THE move to remove regional and international trade barriers through digitisation of the Beitbridge port of entry continues to impact positively with more importers/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 efficient clearance of legitimate traffic and trade facilitation at the country’s ports of entry.
The ZESW seeks 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 implementing the project in phases and providing the co-ordination and harmonisation of clearance processes. It introduced the concept at Beitbridge on May 16.
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 regulatory and transitory services will be at one point.
Under this programme, processes and payments will now be done online through a single platform, making it faster, better and transparent.
There are 22 border agencies at major ports authorities, including Beitbridge, whose operations are being merged and streamlined under the ZESW. The facility enhances Government’s ease of doing business mantra 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,” Zimra corporate communications executive, Mr Gladman Njanji, said.
“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 and plug revenue leakages hence increasing revenue collections and providing additional convenience to clients.”
He said the number of interests lodged into the system has gradually been increasing every week compared to those at the Forbes Border Post and the Robert Mugabe International Airport where the system was first rolled out.
Mr Njanji said after the system’s launch between May 16 and 28, 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 import entries and nothing on transit and RGM Airport recorded only 16 import entries in the same week.
During the same period, Beitbridge conducted 77 bulk human remains inspections online, coming into the country and five transiting through Zimbabwe.
At Forbes there were 13 bulk inspections on human remains, with one in transit, while RGM Airport processed 267 arriving human remains and 14 left Zimbabwe using the same facility.
“The following users were created in the ZESW system at Beitbridge, transporters 28, customs clearing agents 264, funeral parlours 49 and Port Health officers 96,” said Mr Njanji.
“The clearing agents welcomed the initiative as it allows them to centralise their operations by capturing and submission of information electronically without having to leave their offices to physically visit Port Health or Zimra.
“In addition, they are of the view that the project should now 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.
Zimra’s head of compliance and automation, Mr Adrian Spares, said the facility allows parties involved in trade facilitation to lodge standardised information and documents electronically at a single entry point to fulfil all import, export and transit-related regulatory requirements.
He said so far, they are implementing the Ministry of Health and Child Care Port Health module in the electronic single window system.
This was first rolled out and implemented at Forbes Border Post in September last year followed by the RGM Airport.
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