adminMashudu Netsianda in Beitbridge
ZIMBABWEANS based in South Africa, yesterday continued to flock into the country to spend Christmas with their families. When Chronicle visited the border post yesterday, there were long winding queues of travellers and vehicles waiting to be cleared by immigration and customs officials.
The assistant regional immigration manager Charles Gwede said they were yet to compile the statistics for the weekend.However, last weekend more than 137,000 travellers passed through the country’s busiest border post.
Gwede said the number of travellers had increased over the last few days as Zimbabweans and travellers in transit entered the country through Beitbridge border post. He, however, said they were managing the situation.
“We are handling an increased volume of travellers, mostly Zimbabweans working in South Africa and tourists including those in transit to neighbouring countries up north.
“So far we have not encountered any problems and all our counters have been effectively manned. We got 15 more officers and they are helping us in speeding up the clearance process,” said Gwede.
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) has also reverted to the manual temporary import permit clearance process, a move which has seen a tremendous improvement in the clearance of travellers.
When Chronicle visited the South African side, the situation was the same as travellers continued to stream into the country. Authorities have created separate queues for commercial traffic and buses to avoid congestion. As part of their decongestion drive, the immigration authorities have collapsed their shifts to maximize manpower.
Beitbridge is the busiest inland port of entry in sub-Saharan Africa. It handles an average of 10,000 travellers daily with the figures doubling during peak periods such Christmas holiday.
Last year’s travellers during the Christmas holidays spent several days stranded at the border because of congestion and delays by immigration officials.
The movement of travellers started from December 13. Immigration officials have been receiving a huge influx of travellers and are anticipating more arrivals in the run-up to Christmas on Wednesday. Border authorities from both Zimbabwe and South Africa hold inter-border meetings from time to time to discuss and explore strategies aimed at dealing with congestion during peak periods.
During a recent Zimbabwe/South Africa Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, the Home Affairs ministers from the two countries said they would come up with a range of measures to curb congestion and weed out criminal activity at the Beitbridge Border Post during the festive season.
The measures include setting up clearance centres away from the border. South Africa’s Border Control Co-coordinating Committee (BCOCC) has also deployed more staff at the border to speed the clearance of travellers.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter