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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
SHORTAGE of parking infrastructure at the South African side of Beitbridge border has resulted in commercial cargo destined for regional and international markets piling up on the Zimbabwean side.
During off-peak times around 200 buses, 1 000 commercial trucks and 500 light vehicles and 12 000 travellers use the border daily.
The number rises threefold during major holidays, notably the festive season, Easter and school breaks.
Zimbabwe has since modernised its border into three terminals at a cost of US$300 million to cater for commercial, buses and light vehicles, and pedestrians.
The port of entry (Zimbabwe), which is also automated and uses biometrics to prevent irregular migrants and criminals from accessing the area, links South Africa with Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, DRC, Malawi and Tanzania.
The move has paid dividends with the customs yard in Zimbabwe now able to hold up to 200 trucks at any given time, however, space remains a challenge on the South African border.
To avoid clogging the N1 highway, the South Africans are now using the commercial parking for non-commercial vehicles which is rising daily.
The trucks are being cleared into South Africa in batches of 20 or 30 and this has led to congestion on the Zimbabwean side where trucks are lining up on the main road linking the port of entry and the roads leading to Bulawayo and Harare.
“What is happening is that our counterparts have created more clearance points for non-commercial traffic which has drastically increased and they have asked us to hold the trucks and send them in batches of 20 to 30 trucks at a time,” said a Zimbabwean border official.
Statistics from the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) show that a total of 8 141 light vehicles and 4 496 commercial trucks used the port of entry between Friday morning and Monday evening.
In addition, the number of light vehicles using the border is rising from the usual 500 to 2 000 per day, while that of commercial trucks has risen to around 1 200 daily from below 1 000 off peak.
In separate interviews, truck drivers said they had spent more than 24 hours trying to cross into South Africa.
“I have managed to drive for less than 4km in the last 24 hours. The queue is long and moving at a snail pace,” said Mr Josenzigose Mazivila, a Mozambican driver.
Another driver from Bulawayo, Mr Sihlobo Mthembo said they were yet to get any feedback from local border authorities on the way forward.
“As you can see we hardly slept, we have been pushing towards the border and since I arrived at 5am on Monday, I managed to drive towards the border in this slow-moving queue for only 2km,” he said.
Another driver, Mr Sydney Mutetwa said his employer was worried because he had taken longer than necessary to cross the border.
He said he had completed all the documentation in Zimbabwe and was only waiting to cross into South Africa.
Under normal circumstances, it takes less than three hours for trucks to clear on both the Zimbabwean and South African side of the border.
In addition, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) uses the pre-clearance system where imports or exports are processed at the Documented Processing Centres (DPC) before they reach the desired port of entry or exit.
Under the current setup, all commercial bills of entries are being processed electronically and these are processed at Harare, Masvingo and Bulawayo.
When these bills of entry are processed the trucks are then given the green light to the port of entry or exit where authorities there only check for conformity.
The regional immigration officer-in-charge of southern region in Zimbabwe, Mr Joshua Chibundu said the volume of traffic was still manageable.
“As of yesterday we processed a total of 24400 for, the volumes are not very high. The situation is under control at the same time, we advise travellers to ensure they have the requisite documents to enable border agencies to easily facilitate their clearance,” said Mr Chibundu.
South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) spokesperson, Mr Stephen van Zeel said on Monday that they had opened more workstations at the border post to clear the rising non-commercial traffic.
“We are ready to handle the traffic through the Beitbridge Border Post where we have started to witness an increase in non-commercial traffic,” he said.
“So, we have deployed more immigration officers from less busy stations and opened more work stations and clearing booths within the border.
“In addition to that, we have created more traffic lanes to ensure that vehicles do not clog the border and the major highway linking the border and Musina town.”
South Africa cleared higher volumes of traffic on Sunday after main companies closed for the festive season on Friday and Saturday.
Mr van Zeel said their main objective was to cater for the pre-festive season movement, the post-festive season period and the re-opening of schools in the New Year.
In September South Africa’s government approved a proposal by the Ministry of Home Affairs to upgrade six of its major ports of entries.
The six earmarked ports of entry are: Beitbridge-Zimbabwe, Lebombo-Mozambique, Maseru Bridge-Lesotho, Ficksburg-Lesotho, Kopfontein-Botswana and Oshoek-Eswatini.
The move is set to improve efficiency and match the development matrix between South Africa and its neighbours including Zimbabwe which has since transformed its component of the border.
Online Reporter