380 000 pass through Beitbridge for holidays

TRAVELLERS who entered the country through Beitbridge Border Post during the just ended festive season increased to 381 520 from 345 987 last year.

The assistant regional immigration officer in charge of Beitbridge, Mr Nqobile Ncube attributed the surge in entries to the confidence travellers had with the level of efficiency and organisation among border authorities.

"Though the movement of travellers increased on the arrivals side, we had the situation under control," he said.

"We employed the border efficiency management system where we harmonised operations with local and South African officials to ensure that travellers spent the shortest possible time at the border.

"Some of the measures included the re-organisation of the border, where traffic is separated into pedestrians, motorists, buses, commercial and visitors. This initiative has proved to be effective and we are looking to improve from our past experience as we prepare for the Easter Holidays coming in the not so distant future."

Mr Ncube said they were clearing an average of 30 000 people daily at the country and Sadc's busiest inland port in December alone. He said off peak, they cleared about 14 000 travellers per day.

The department set its festive season between December 5 last year and January 15 this year. Mr Ncube said they were also having period review meetings with both local and their counterparts on the South African side to ensure that the border was user friendly.

"You will also note that more people have become knowledgeable and accustomed to using the border post other than resorting to irregular migration and hence we continue to have an increase in people with valid travel documents," said Mr Ncube.

He said they had also deployed a Regional Compliance and Enforcement Unit to curb issues of rent-seeking, child smuggling and border jumping. Mr Ncube said the initiative had led to a reduction in cases of child smuggling which had become perennial.

"It is pleasing to note that other than making the border user friendly, we have managed to penetrate some syndicates which were operating illegal parallel structures at the border and reduce cases of child smuggling," he said.

"However, let me warn all those with a penchant of breaking the law that the Regional Compliance and Enforcement Unit is here to stay. We are not relenting, people must live within the confines of the law."

Mr Ncube said though they had witnessed an upsurge in South Africa bound traffic between January 1 and 5 the situation was returning to normal as most of the people crossed into the neighbouring country between Saturday and Sunday. He said they had adequately deployed staff to deal with the spike in human and vehicular traffic during the festive season.

A border official, who preferred anonymity said they had cleared over 100 000 vehicles at the border in December alone.

These include light passenger vehicles, buses and haulage trucks. It is also understood that the separation of traffic into red and green routes by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority has been paying dividends in the last two years. The red route is used by those with goods to declare, while the green route is for those with nothing to declare.