Massive congestion at Beitbridge

From Thupeyo Muleya in BEITBRIDGE

THERE is massive congestion at Beitbridge Border Post with Immigration Department and Zimbabwe Revenue Aut-hority officials battling to clear vehicles, returning residents and shoppers crossing from South Africa.

Both human and vehicular traffic drastically increased from last Friday when most South African firms shut down for the year.

Many travellers told The Herald yesterday that they had spent more than three hours on either side of the border.

However, both Zimra and the Immigration Department blame the delay on lack of personnel and appropriate infrastructure.

Between 15 000 and 19 000 people are entering Zimbabwe on a daily basis.

The normal figure at other times of the year is 2 500.

Figures from the Immigration Department indicate that 55 190 people entered Zimbabwe between Friday and Sun-day night, while 21 738 left the country over the same period.

Both Zimra and the Immigration Department have taken staff from other stations and deployed them to Beitbridge, but the numbers are still inadequate.

Zimra has 227 workers instead of 400, while the Immigration Department is operating with 55 against a requirement of 80.

Transport, Communication and Infrastructure Develop-ment Minister Nicholas Goche and his Finance counterpart Tendai Biti yesterday toured the border post to assess the situation and help hammer out a solution.

During the tour, Assistant Regional Immigration Officer-in-Charge (Southern Region), Mr Charles Gwede, said they had a host of measures to try and ease the congestion.

"We are separating traffic into human, vehicular, buses, cargo, tourists and returning residents.

"We have enlisted the services of the police to assist with controlling queues and preventing touts from entering the border post. Our volume of traffic has of late increased. As of Friday and Sunday, we recorded 55 190 arrivals and 21 738 departures.

"Under normal circumstances, we clear about 6 000 peo-ple over the same period. We are anticipating an influx in the next two days, but we are, however, equal to the task.

"We are operating with 18 officers per shift though we usually operate with 10. We have brought in 13 more immigration officers from less busy stations," said Mr Gwede.

Zimra has deployed an extra 39 officers to Beitbridge.

Minister Biti promised that such travelling nightmares would end this year.

"At the moment, people are taking between six and seven hours to cross from Zimbabwe to South Africa. We are going to do everything within our power to improve the situation," said Minister Biti.

Government has said it will transform Beitbridge into a modern urban centre and consolidate services to spruce up the border post’s image and improve clearance procedures.

"As Government, we are very concerned by the way things are happening at Beitbridge Border Post, which is one of the busiest ports of entry in the country and region.

"The state of affairs here is affecting the speedy movement of both cargo and private traffic.

"Furthermore, most of the infrastructure here is in a bad state and we have courted other partners to help in the re-organisation and transformation of the border post to world class standards.

"We expect the process to be completed by September next year. We are also going to consolidate services here and make the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority the lead agent and do away with a lot of control measures which are frustrating

and delaying travellers.

"You will realise that at the moment we have a lot of agents duplicating services yet that can be consolidated and carried out by one lead agent.

"We have also noted with concern that a lot of operations are being done manually which is slowing down the movement of people and cargo.

"With that in mind we are going to work out on a serious programme to computirise services especially with Zimra where we are going to link all the computers through the Asycuda Clearance System.

"Some of the clearance facilities, especially for commercial purposes, should be done over the Internet rather than truckers spending days for their documents to be processed manually.

"In essence we need a multi-faceted approach to address the challenges we are facing here.

"A border post should be a place for happiness not depression – people should be happy that they are going home or visiting a hospitable country.

"This (border post) is the preface to the country and whatever image we portray here which is way beyond the 21st century is going to affect us as a country," he said.
Herald 21 Decemebr 2010
www.herald.co.zw