By Rex Mphisa
BUSINESS came to a complete standstill from 11am to late in the evening on Thursday after an electricity outage and generator failure on the South African side of Beitbridge.
It is understood the fault developed during a routine maintenance exercise by SA power utility Eskom.
Traffic to SA and from that country remained stuck in the border because travellers could not be processed electronically.
On the Zimbabwean side travellers were advised of the delays ahead.
The situation was the same on the Customs and Excise commercial sections of the SA border where goods processing was impossible.
All systems on the SA side, just like the Zimbabwean side, are electronic.
Beitbridge Regional Immigration Officer Joshua Chibundu said his SA counterparts came to update him of the development that delayed thousands of travellers leaving them stranded at Beitbridge.
“Immigration is not functional.because of power issues, they came to my office,” said Chibundu.
Investigations by Ziyah News Network established that SA had been caught flat footed by the electricity outage.
A message shared to stakeholders by the SA Revenue services said they had been failed by power.
“Please note that we do not have power at commercial and our backup generator failed to start. Electricians are attending to the matter. Services offered inside the commercial building will resume once power is restored.”
At 1800hrs power was yet to be restored in the border while the crowds wishing to leave SA for Zimbabwe kept swelling.
Not a single car was processed to and from SA from 11am to around 10pm.
Frustrated travellers frowned at the poor handling of affairs with many asking why SA relied on a single generator for its busiest land port.
“It is frustrating and might as well be a work of sabotage. This is their busiest land port and is this even possible for such a sophisticated country? Does it mean the managers at the border do not inspect their equipment? Some have overstayed and should be moved,” said a frustrated regular traveller to Musina.
“This is the same organisation which fails to run a generator but deploys sophisticated machinery against border jumpers? This is a first!”
SA Revenue Services was said to have come back online at around 2000 hrs but that was helpless because immigration was still offline.