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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
SOUTH African and Zimbabwean border authorities have managed to clear congestion at Beitbridge Border Post where travellers have been experiencing prolonged delays in the last two weeks.

The congestion at the Sadc’s busiest inland port started from December 15, when most people started travelling to either South Africa or Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe reopened its borders to general travel starting with motorists and pedestrians at the beginning of this month.

This saw a relative number of people using vehicles to travel across borders.

Commercial truck drivers were as a result now spending at least one week to cross into Zimbabwe or SA while pedestrians and light vehicle motorists needed 48 hours to complete the border processes.

During that period, five Zimbabweans died in queues while waiting to be cleared to leave SA prompting authorities to act decisively to address the border chaos.

The SA Department of Home Affairs said it had worked with a number of stakeholders to clear the congestion at the border.

“The Department of Home Affairs wishes to announce that congestion at Beitbridge Border Post has been cleared and traffic has returned to normal.

“All lanes around the border have been cleared and the border has been easily accessible from the afternoon of 24 December 2020. This means that all travellers through Beitbridge have been processed and cleared,” said the Department in a statement.

According to the statement, the Department of Home Affairs worked with the Department of Health, the SA National Defence Force, the SA Police Service, the SA Revenue Service, and the Limpopo Provincial Government to resolve the impasse that had led to traffic congestion at Beitbridge.

They also roped in Musina Local Municipality which provided additional holding areas for all northbound vehicles.

“This enabled vehicles going to the border to be released to travel in manageable numbers. The municipality also provided ablution facilities and water along the route from the town of Musina to the port of entry,” said the Department.

The organisation also urged travellers to continue observing traffic and immigration laws as well as health protocols which have been put in place to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among other things, the delay in the movement of the commercial cargo was attributed to slow Covid-19 screening processes at the South African border, resulting in officials in that country temporarily waiving testing of truck drivers.

In addition, the validity of Covid-19 clearance certificates for commercial truck drivers were reviewed from 14 days to one month.

Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the neighbouring country, Mr David Hamadziripi, said Harare and Pretoria were continually engaging to address traffic flow challenges at Beitbridge.

Our news crew observed that very few light motor vehicles were now leaving or entering the country.

Long queues of commercial trucks have disappeared from the major roads in Beitbridge town.

It is also understood that though there was heightened activity at the border in the last few days, an average of 5 000 people are now crossing the border daily.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, an average of 30 000 people crossed the border daily during peak periods. @tupeyo