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as more Zimbabweans based in neighbouring countries continue to pour in for Christmas Day.
The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement yesterday that the President declared the public holiday in terms of section 2(2) of the Public Holidays and Prohibition of Business Act (Chapter 10; 21).
The declaration of Monday as a public holiday means that most companies would close business today for the Christmas holiday.
The country will mark Unity Day tomorrow and then Christmas Day on Tuesday and Boxing Day on Wednesday.
By declaring Monday a public holiday, President Mugabe has spared workers the hassles of breaking for Unity Day and then coming back to work on Monday.
The workers were expected to then go back on holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Beitbridge Border Post remained extremely busy as travellers, mostly Zimbabweans working in South Africa popularly known as injivas, continued to trickle into the country for the holiday.
Statistics from the immigration officers at the border revealed that 126 414 people passed through the border post between Friday last week and Wednesday.
Officials manning counters said there were more travellers on the arrival section than those on the departure side.
The assistant regional immigration manager in charge of Beitbridge Border Post, Mr Charles Gwede, said they expected the numbers to increase, particularly on the arrivals side between today and Christmas Eve.
When Chronicle news crew visited the border post yesterday afternoon there were long winding queues of travellers waiting for both customs and immigration clearance.
South African cars, mostly Gauteng registered ones, were also a common sight at the border clearance bays on the arrivals’ section.
Immigration guards with the help of police officers were busy controlling queues on the entry side.
On the departure side, immigration officials were less busy compared to last week when scores of travellers, mostly holiday makers and early Christmas shoppers crossed to South Africa. As a decongestion strategy, the Department of Immigration also created additional counters where travellers are utilising the cubicles situated outside the immigration hall.
Mr Gwede said they have since suspended leave and off-days for their staff in a move aimed at speeding up the clearance of travellers during the festive period.
On the South African side, immigration and customs officers have also opened more desks at their revenue services commercial hall.
Home Affairs officials from the regional office in Thohoyandou have also been deployed to the border to quicken the clearance of travellers at the border during the festive period.
Plumtree Border Post will, starting from today up to Christmas Day, be operating 24 hours to accommodate the high volume of travellers passing through.
Officials manning the border said they handled about 9 000 travellers on Tuesday alone with 7 028 entering the country while 1 715 were recorded on the departure side.
The assistant regional immigration officer in charge of the western region, Mr Nqobile Ncube, said this was a significant increase from the average of 2 000 travellers a day on other days.
He said the 24-hour service would enable his office to handle the pressure that builds up during the last three to four days before Christmas Day.
He said his department would not increase the number of staff but would set up two 12-hour shifts. Statistics showed that the border started recording an increase in the number of travellers as from 1 December.
“Since 1 December we have been clearing about 2 000 travellers but the figure jumped to 2 205 on 10 December. Since 13 December we have witnessed a significant upward trend which dropped slightly on Sunday but as of now we have a lot of people passing through.
“We had the highest number of people who left the country being recorded on Monday as we had 2 203 travellers going out while the lowest was recorded on 1 December with 822 exiting travellers,” he said.
Mr Ncube said the Ramokgwebana Border Post in Botswana had since implemented measures of clearing travellers manually in case the system fails.
The Ramokgwebana Border Post in Botswana was recently reported to be overwhelmed by the increased number of travellers. — Beitbridge Reporter, Plumtree Correspondent, Harare Bureau.
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