By Rex Mphisa
THOUSANDS of Zimbabweans coming home from South Africa are facing delays as the South African Immigration Department is failing to cope with travellers.
Some have described the situation on the SA side as chaotic.
Others suspect the chaos is deliberate to induce travellers into paying bribes to be processed quickly.
It has been blamed on the negative attitude of SA officials towards other nationals.
Others believed it was poor planning on part of the officials who do not learn from previous similar situations.
There have also been calls for the establishment of anotber border post between Zimbabwe and South Africa to relieve pressure from the Beitbridge border post.
Traffic is moving at a snail’s pace and the queue of vehicles is stretching for more than 13 kilometres blocking the road leading to the border from Musina.
Local taxis operating from the SA border to Musina are dropping clients some 13 kilometres away and people walk that distance to the border because of the blockage.
Some Beitbridge day shoppers who went to Musina on Saturday failed to return and slept in the queue as the SA officials were overwhelmed by the crowds.
“Our turnover on the Zimbabwean side is fair but we having problems how to get the people on the SA side here so we can clear them and they travel on time,” said Zimborders general manager Nqobile Ncube.
“It’s poor planning or even the attitude of South African authorities, with these increased volumes of traffic during the festive season you only find just four or five officers stamping passports on the counters while the other Green bombers (Border Guards)are busy harassing travellers with valid documents outside then people are packed outside in the rain imagine with kids ,” said Beitbridge resident.
“Someone benefits big time from this chaos because there are touts running around for those who are rushing who their cash they are taken straight to the counter. The process of stamping the departure usually take less than a minute per person but you will surprise how long it takes for the queues to move , it’s very sad in these difficult times some people capitalise and thrive on wickedness. Decent people with all requisite documents are treated like a bunch of livestock driven to slaughter,” he said.
On Sunday some travellers asked why there is only one border post between SA and Zimbabwe which share a border some 300 kilometres long.
“If there was another border post ther would be much relief on Beitbridge. It is strange the two countries are trade partners but they only have one border post on their border line,” said Addison Mugumbati of Chivi.