Zim, SA to ease Beitbridge border congestion

ZIMBABWE and South Africa have come up with a range of measures to curb congestion and weed out criminal activity at the Beitbridge Border Post during the coming festive season.

The measures include setting up clearance centres away from the border.

Beitbridge Border Post is the busiest inland port of entry in Sadc with about 30 000 travellers and more than 2 500 private cars passing through it per day during peak periods.

Queues tend to stretch up to 20km during this period with travellers spending three to four nights waiting for clearance.

South African Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor said congestion at the Beitbridge Border Post was of concern to both countries.

"The two countries have adopted a range of measures towards addressing congestion at the border. Apart from increasing staff deployment to ensure quick processing of documents, we will create centres away from the border posts for multi-border transport," the

Minister said in an interview after attending the 8th Session of the Zimbabwe/South Africa Joint Permanent Commission on Defence and Security, which ended in Bulawayo last Thursday.

She added: "After clearance the travellers will then be escorted to pass through the border. We will extend our services as early as December to February to allow smooth movement of people."

Minister Pandor said the two countries agreed to intensify defence and police patrols along the border to curb illegal migration and smuggling.

"Our customs departments will enhance searches of vehicles using scanners to see that all the vehicles passing through the border are legal," she said.

Home Affairs Deputy Minister in Zimbabwe Cde Ziyambi Ziyambi who also attended the meeting concurred.

"We discussed that issue and agreed to have regular meetings between the two countries. We agreed to increase staff complement on both sides to allow smooth flow of traffic. This has to start as early as next week," said Cde Ziyambi.

"We will also engage the customs department over these issues and intensify border patrols for security purposes."

The two ministers said efforts were under way to facilitate a second phase of documentation exercise for Zimbabweans after the initial one, which benefited more than 200 000.

A significant population of Zimbabweans is based in South Africa many of whom are staying there without legal documents.

"That is an ongoing process. We continue to engage and we are discussing that. We want our people to regularise their stay there," Cde Ziyambi said.

Minister Pandor could not rule out the possibility of a second documentation phase: "We introduced the documentation exercise for Zimbabweans as a pilot process. After this we must report the outcome to our Government to see if the process ran well and map the way forward. We are committed to ensure that Zimbabweans obtain legal travel documents," she said.

Besides geographical proximity, South Africa is Zimbabwe's biggest trading partner, with trade between the two countries running to billions of rand each year.

The two countries have also signed a memorandum of understanding on migration to abolish visa requirements to ease the movement of people in both countries.