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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) adopted the traffic separation model pioneered on the Zimbabwe side over the festive season at Beitbridge to ensure there was a speedy flow of cargo and travellers at the Border Post.
Although the model was being temporarily used south of the Limpopo River, Zimbabwe has permanently separated traffic and automated its systems as part of the US$300 million Beitbridge transformation project.
BMA head, Dr Mike Masiapato said the separation was a game-changer which had enhanced efficiency systems at the two countries’ busiest port of entry.
“As the Border Management Authority, the implementation of the festive season traffic plan is underway as planned,” said Dr Masiapato.
“We have separated various processing points within the port of entry. The Manica bypass has been allocated to light vehicles, while pedestrians and those in buses are being cleared at the main port building and cargo is being processed separately with the help of the South African Revenue Services (SARS).
“Everything is going according to plan and we do expect the number to escalate in the next few days”.
He said they have been witnessing an increase in arrivals from New Year’s Day when they cleared 10 000 entries and numbers were growing to around 20 000 travellers daily.
Between January 1 and January 7, Dr Masiapato said they cleared 119 000 arrivals. “Over and above that number of people we have facilitated; we have been able to refuse entry to 480 travellers without valid documents.
Some were intercepted along the border line where the border guards and soldiers are deployed,” he said.
Travellers already are toasting efficiency systems on the Zimbabwe side, where a freight terminal, bus terminal, pedestrian and light vehicle terminal have been built permanently to offer customised services.
People are spending less than 30 minutes to complete the border processes depending with their own availability of documents and compliance with border processes.
The facility was upgraded by the government under a 17 and half year private public partnership arrangement with the Zimborders Consortium.
“As of today (yesterday) traffic has now subsided, including the south bound return traffic, truck volumes are still quite low which is expected and normal for the time of the year post holiday and year end peaks,” said Zimborders Consortium chief executive officer, Mr Francois Diedrechsen.
It is understood that more travellers from Zimbabwe and countries north of the Zambezi River continue to use the newly transformed Beitbridge border post.
It is estimated that the post carries over 7 million travellers annually.
In previous years the lack of appropriate infrastructure and non-automation at the country’s and Sadc’s busiest border (Beitbridge) had in previous years created a bottleneck to the efficient movement of cargo and people.
This created security challenges, congestion, and delays.
Statistics from the Department of Immigration show that in December last year a total of 525 289 travellers used the Beitbridge border post compared to 478 306 who passed through the same port in 2022.
Online Reporter