Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
THE movement of traffic from Zimbabwe into South Africa where travellers had been spending long delays in the last three days had relatively improved following engagements by authorities from the two countries through the inter-border management committee.
Since New Year’s Day, South Africa has been struggling to absorb an influx in arriving traffic due to limited parking space for vehicles and lean manpower.
As a result, vehicles and buses already cleared at the three terminals in Zimbabwe had to spill over into the local town’s roads.
Most travellers spent between five and 10 hours passing through the border.
As of midday on Monday most light vehicles had been cleared for passage into South Africa, while buses were being released in small batches.
“We have pushed a lot of traffic into South Africa following our engagements with our counterparts. They have limited space for parking buses hence we resolved to send them in batches.
“As for light vehicles we managed to process the majority overnight. We are going to continually engage and coordinate the flow of traffic together to minimise delays,” Regional Immigration officer in charge of Southern Region (Beitbridge, Masvingo, Chiredzi and Sango), Mr Joshua Chibundu, said.
South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) Commissioner, Dr Michael Masiapato, said they had added more resources to clear a surge in traffic through Beitbridge.
He said they were also strictly implementing immigration and Port Health protocols to minimise leakages.
Dr Masiapato said they were clearing an average of 25 000 travellers daily as the festive season winds up.
“We are working with other stakeholders to process travellers and we are clearing at least 25 000 travellers daily.
“We are also monitoring the border line to minimise illegal migration on a full time basis. At the same time, we are making sure we don’t relax on biosecurity and port health issues,” he said.
“We are expecting traffic to increase mid-week and we expect the second peak next Sunday.”
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