SA to increase border officials

Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
The South African government will this week deploy more immigration officers at Beitbridge border post to facilitate a speedy flow of both human and vehicular traffic entering or leaving that country, an official has said. The deployment follows an outcry
from travellers over delays and congestion at that country’s border for the last four weeks where travellers were spending an average of four hours to enter or leave that country.
In some instances travellers had to abort their journeys because of the state of affairs south of the Limpopo River.
The Border Operations Co-ordinating Committee spokesperson Mr Calvin Mulaudzi said in a telephone interview yesterday that they had resolved to deploy more staff in light of an increase in traffic passing through the border post. He said an increase in movement of people between the two countries was a good sign of strong trade relations and hence the need to address barriers to free trade. He said they were operating with 20 officers per shift and were looking at increasing the numbers to between 26 and 30 people.
Mr Mulaudzi added that they had another team on the ground which was investigating the movement trend which they would use in making further adjustments on operations and deployments.
He said the team had been on the ground for the past two weeks and was set to conclude its mission by the end of this month.
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