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 Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau

A total of 645,590 travellers used the Beitbridge Border Post during the recently concluded 2024 festive season, South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) announced on Monday.

In a statement, the BMA revealed that the number of travellers crossing South Africa’s borders had increased across all ports of entry in 2024 compared to the previous year. The OR Tambo International Airport and Beitbridge recorded the highest volumes of traffic.

Beitbridge, the busiest inland port, sees an average of 15,000 crossings daily during off-peak periods, with the number tripling during peak seasons. The border is a key transit point for travellers from Botswana, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.

“Starting with immigration matters, the BMA facilitated the legitimate movement of approximately 5,084,251 travellers across our 71 ports of entry during this festive period,” said the BMA.

“This figure represents an increase of 51,680 travellers compared to the 2023/2024 festive period. However, it remains lower than the pre-COVID-19 figure of about 6 million travellers.”

“During this festive period, OR Tambo International Airport facilitated the majority of travellers at 1,065,636, followed by the Beitbridge land port of entry to Zimbabwe at 645,590 travellers, and then the Lebombo land port of entry to Mozambique at 571,131.”

The BMA also reported processing over 395,189 private vehicles, 12,974 minibus taxis, and 6,071 buses through its movement control system during the same period.

The majority of travellers used the OR Tambo International Airport, Beitbridge, Lebombo, Kopfontein, Oshoek, Cape Town International Airport, Maseru Bridge, Ficksburg, Cape Town Harbour, and Durban Harbour. According to the BMA, these top ten ports facilitated approximately 3,964,122 travellers, accounting for the majority of all movements. The remaining 33% were processed through the other 61 ports of entry across the country.

“Out of the total number of 58,938 processed trucks, 47,891 were processed for exports, while 11,047 were processed for imports,” said the BMA.

“Of the trucks processed for export, 74% were cleared within 30 minutes, while 66% of those processed for imports were also cleared within 30 minutes. In this regard, Lebombo facilitated the majority of export trucks at about 18,544, while Beitbridge recorded the highest number of imports at 5,521 trucks.”