Chronicle Editor
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
Congestion is reigning supreme at Beitbridge Border Post as thousands of Zimbabweans based in South Africa are making a last minute rush to return to work.
More than 500 000 people and nearly 100 000 vehicles used Sadc’s busiest port of entry in December last year.
Long queues of vehicles stretching for over four kilometres into Beitbridge town have been the order of the day over the past four days.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police, Army, Municipal police have been deployed on major roads leading to the border post to maintain order.
Traffic has been categorised into light vehicles, buses, commercial and pedestrians to avoid locking the border.
Heavy (commercial) vehicles and buses are using a bypass road which goes through Vhembe View low-density suburb while light vehicles are using the main road leading to Bulawayo to access the border.
The assistant regional immigration officer in charge of Beitbridge, Mr Nqobile Ncube could not be reached for comment yesterday, but on Saturday he said they were working with South African immigration officials to expeditiously clear the traffic.
He said they were using the border efficiency management systems which they employed in December that had proved to be effective.
“We have added more manpower and opened more service points to clear people and vehicles as fast as possible.
“Further, we are constantly liaising with South Africa in addressing challenges as and when they arise,” said Mr Ncube.
He said limited parking space for light vehicles and buses was the main challenge on the South African component of the border.
The official said the majority of the motorists had been cleared for passage into South Africa where vehicles were being cleared in batches.
“We have harmonised operations between 3rd of December 2019 to 13 January 2020 and are rolling out a number of compliance measures to curb movement by undocumented persons across borders and the smuggling of minors,” said Mr Ncube.
A border source said the slow movement of people into South Africa was also caused by the many security checks on travellers considering that there were many with fake or fraudulently acquired documents.
“You will realise that the South Africans are thorough on security checks considering that there a lot of people who want to play hide and seek with the law during major holidays,” said the source.
The South African home affairs department recently deployed 400 more staff to major border posts including Beitbridge to address manpower challenges.
The ongoing modernisation programme at a cost of $241 million is also expected to improve operations at Beitbridge Border Post which handles 15 000 travellers daily off peak and 30 000 in busy times.
It is envisaged that on completion the border will carry five times the present volumes of both human and vehicular traffic.
Bongani Ndlovu