The Sunday News
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
The Governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa have started engaging each to find a lasting solution to the current chaos at Beitbridge Border Post where travellers are spending more than 48 hours to access either country, an official has said.
The authorities are said to have agreed to partially relax Covid-19 curfew regulations as they battle to clear long queues either side of the border.
The long delays at the border have since claimed the life of a Zimbabwean woman who collapsed and died in an Eagle Line bus while waiting to be cleared out of South Africa on Tuesday afternoon.
The woman is believed to have succumbed to fatigue after spending close to 36 hours in the bus at the border.
While engagement between Harare and Pretoria are ongoing, Limpopo’s Provincial Government has sent a delegation led by the Department of Transport’s Director of Traffic and Community Safety, Mr Allen Matsila to attend to the chaos at the border.
Zimbabwe’ Ambassador to South Africa, Mr David Hamadziripi said they were hopeful that the movement of traffic would soon improve at the border.
“The two Governments are in contact with a view to finding a sustainable solution to the delays currently being experienced by travellers at Beitbridge Border Post.
“It is our expectation that the results of these efforts will be discernible very soon,” said the Ambassador.
According to Limpopo’s Department of Transport spokesperson, Mr Matome Moremi, the team was already hard at work on the ground decongesting the N1 highway to push the clearance of northbound traffic.
“A high-level team of traffic officers led by Mr Matsila is in Beitbridge and is being assisted by the South Africa Police Services,” he said.
“What we are doing is the separation of traffic into heavy and light vehicles.
These light vehicles are being directed to a holding place at the Musina Showgrounds as soon as they arrive in Musina. From there, they are being cleared into the border post in batches”.
Mr Moremi said the decongestion plan has started paying dividends since they had managed to clear the gridlock on the 12km stretch leading to the border post.
He said commercial trucks were being processed separately considering they will be transporting essential cargo.
The official said the long queues were a result of a curfew that was being implemented after 10 PM in that country in line with Covid-19 containment protocols.
However, by the end of the day yesterday, the movement of traffic had gradually improved after border authorities partially improved the curfew regulations and cleared traffic going to either country.
A Zimbabwean border official said; “There is a need to lobby both Governments to exempt the border in as far as curfew regulations are concerned because it is resulting in serious congestion for northbound traffic”.
Another official said Zimbabwe should urgently set up an alternative Covid-19 testing point for Beitbridge residents and the commercial truck drivers whose clearance certificates are expiring before reaching the Port of Entry.
“As it stands, South Africa is struggling to clear everyone entering their country since its mobile laboratory only operates between 10 AM and 3 PM from one central point.
“This is not sustainable; we will end up getting more infections or an outbreak of waterborne diseases among the truckers” said the official.
An average of 6500 travellers, 1200 commercial trucks and 2500 light vehicles are passing through the border daily, with truckers being the hard-hit since they started experiencing long delays for the past three weeks. @tupeyo
