Paul Nyathi

Immigration experts at Beitbridge Border Post have advised goverment not to fully open the port of entry probably until after the festive season.

Speaking during a tour of Beitbridge Border Post, team leader Mr Stewart Nyakotyo said engagements have been ongoing with stakeholders at the one of Africa’s busiest border.

“We have started engaging various stakeholders at Beitbridge border post to assess the resources, operations, proposals, state of manpower, proposed timeframes for reopening, current operational challenges and what they need to get things moving,” he said.

“After that we are going to have a practical feel on the ground of what they have and the shortcomings.

“We will then make recommendations to the National Covid-19 Taskforce, which will then merge our findings and recommendations with those from other teams.

During consultations, stakeholders proposed that Government should consider a phased reopening that begins with private vehicles. The immigration officer in charge of Beitbridge, Mr Nqobile Ncube, said:

“It is only prudent to go with the phased route considering the current state of affairs here, where we are battling with commercial trucks with South Africa having re-opened their borders.

“You will note that in 2019, we cleared 5,3 million people at this border, with 14 000 passing daily, and we could have more people if we open at full throttle considering that people have not been moving for over six months.”

He said successfully reopening land borders will depend on Government’s commitment and availability of resources to attend to all safety measures as proposed by stakeholders. Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) shift manager Mr Jericho Rundogo said current civil works to upgrade the border had left them with limited space to operate, prompting the need to stagger the reopening.

“Currently, we are using private cars and bus lanes to clear commercial cargo. Imagine what will happen if we open full scale? So our proposal is, let’s have small or private cars which are easy to manage to come through and we look at public transport after the festive season to avoid chaos,” he said.

Source: State Media