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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Plumtree Correspondent
THE number of travellers who passed through the Plumtree Border Post last month dropped by six percent compared to the same period in 2015.

Regional immigration officer in charge of Western Region which comprises of Plumtree, Maitengwe and Mphoengs Border, Mr Regies Munyaradzi said 138 242 people went through the border last month while 145 725 were recorded under the same period in 2015.

He said repatriations increased from 2 472 in December 2015 to 2 565 last month.

“The number of travellers that we handled from 1 to 31 December dropped slightly from 145 752 in 2015 to 138 242 in 2016. The figure remained high but we were able to cope with the pressure because of the strategies that we put in place such as the 24 hour service and opening additional counters.

“Repatriations increased slightly from 2 472 to 2 565,” he said.

Mr Munyaradzi attributed the decline to other travellers opting to use Maitengwe and Mphoengs Border Posts in order to avoid congestion.

He said in 2015 the border handled more exits than entries but in 2016 entries were higher than exits.

He said they cleared 61 842 people entering the country in 2015 while 77 485 were cleared in 2015. 83 883 went outside the country through the border in 2015 compared to 60 757 last year.

“We experienced a high influx of travellers from 22 December up to 24 December as we were clearing about 8 000 travellers per day. After that the figures dropped to about 4 000 passengers.

“We expect these figures to increase slightly during the first week of the month as people will be travelling back to their workplaces. We are prepared to deal with this increase,” he said.

Mr Munyaradzi said travellers complained of poor service delivery from the Botswana Border throughout the festive holiday.

He said they were constantly engaging their Botswana counterparts over the matter to ensure that travellers were not inconvenienced.

“While we were able to clear travellers quickly to ensure that queues remained short people were getting stranded at the Botswana Border.

Travellers were spending long hours in the queues and some of them were giving up and returning to their homes. Others were resorting to Mphoengs and Maitengwe Borders,” he said.

The Plumtree Border Post was recently named the best run station at the 2016 inaugural awards of excellence for the Department of Immigration shrugging of stiff competition from 25 other stations in the country.

The border was recognised for good management of the station’s assets, clean environment and ability to maintain good inter- agency relations.

Plumtree also emerged as the best in record keeping, outstanding management of station resources, records and personnel.

@DubeMatut