The Sunday News
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
THE construction of the light vehicles and pedestrians’ terminal under the US$300 million Beitbridge Border modernisation has been completed and the contractor opened the terminal for a one-week test run yesterday.
It is envisaged that all teething challenges at the new terminal will be completed by 5 December. Zimborders Consortium chief executive officer Mr Francois Diedrechsen said civil works which started in January last year had been planned in three phases to ensure that there was continuity in terms of traffic flow.
President Mnangagwa has since commissioned the new freight terminal, Information Communication Technologies facilities, and bus terminal which fall under phases one and two respectively.
President Mnangagwa
The freight terminal opened to traffic in October last year while the bus terminal opened for business in June this year.
The Government and the Zimborders Consortium are transforming the border post under Private Public Partnership (PPP).
“Civil works and other developments are done, but we are currently in the final testing phase and have started diverting some traffic to the terminal, during the next few days all potential snags will be rectified and final training completed and the go live date remains 5 December,” said Mr Diedrechsen.
According to the official, in terms of the general outlook of the whole project including out-of-port works, everything is still on track to be completed as per previously given timelines.
He said the out-of-port works include the construction of a staff village for border workers with 220 housing units, an 11,4 mega-litres water reservoir, a new fire station, an animal plant and quarantine facility, and a sewer oxidation dam.
The fire station and the sewer oxidation dam and reservoir have been completed while the animal quarantine will be completed at the end of this month and the housing units will be ready for occupation in March next year.
Beitbridge border post
The consortium’s general manager, Mr Nqobile Ncube, said in a recent interview that the border post was being transformed under three main pillars which include the separation of traffic, automation, and building efficiencies.
“There was a need to create traffic separation. You will recall that in the old border setup, all stakeholders were piled up in one hall. This includes commercial traffic, ordinary travel, buses, light vehicles, and tourists. Despite your different needs you would be lumped in one setup and be treated in the same way. That created a problem in services delivery.”
Mr Ncube said with the creation of the three terminals border authorities were now offering customised services to each type of traffic and the plan was bearing fruits. He said following the automation of services, the human interface between border authorities and clients that creates room for rent-seeking activities was gradually being eliminated.
At a later stage, authorities intend to introduce another module called the automated number plate reader.
“At certain places where you are seeing people controlling booms.
You are only going to be arriving there and your vehicle number plate will be read and if all processes are done properly the robot will read the number plate and communicate with the server and you are good to go,” said Mr Ncube.
Automation, he said, was also leaving an ability for border authorities to electronically audit their processes and take corrective measures where necessary.
He said so far commercial traffic through Beitbridge was improving from 300 trucks daily during Covdi-19 related lockdown to around 900 daily. Mr Ncube said they anticipated the figure to increase to over 1 200 trucks since they were now offering premium quality services at Beitbridge. – @tupeyo
