By Rex Mphisa
South African immigration officers at Beitbridge may have corruptly cashed in more than R2 million from bribes taken from cross‑border bus crews whose passengers they preferred.
In chaotic scenes that reigned supreme at Beitbridge, travellers were delayed.
Travellers have roundly criticised and accused the officilas of corruptly preferring buses ahead of other queues allegedly because they pay bribes.
In what is perhaps the worst crossing experience from SA to Zimbabwe in living memory for many, thousands of travellers spend more than 24 hours on the SA side where officials were clearly overwhelmed.
In that melee, the officers preferred passengers in buses whose crews mobilised bribes delivered by either conductors or bus drivers.
They were then ushered in while those travelling by cars or taxis were left to spend gruelling hours in the slow moving queues.
Officials have said they were processing more than 200 buses a day and with a R100 per passenger, a 60 seater bus would leave R6 000 to officers.
That multiplied by 200 is R120 000 a day for border officials. The peak period was about 10 days which easily translates to R1.2 million.
Thousands of people crossing the border to and from that country have complained of a slow service never witnessed before as the officials preferred serving passengers on buses.
An investigation by this publication established that people in buses were processed faster.
“Even their closed circuit television can be evidence to how they did this. It was not first come first serve as should be but those in buses were preferable,” said an SA police officer.
“They are clearly making money from the designed chaos,” he said.
A woman shopper from Beitbridge said they saw more than 20 buses and their passengers jump the queue.
“We were in the queue for a long time but each time bus crews would lead their passengers in and they were served fast. We later overheard that the bus crews paid R100 per passenger to be served fast,” said a traveller who asked not to be named.
“I actually saw one bus crew member handing over a passenger manifest to an (immigration) officer who counted the names before saying a monetary figure,” said the passenger.
This publication reporter who joined the queue was asked to go right at the end of the line after complaining the bus crews were jumping the queue.
To make good their enterprise, the officials created two entrances with the slow moving one for those not on buses using the South African Revenue Services (SARS) entrance.
The preferred buses passengers used the direct entrance into the immigration hall.
Here bus crews would eject from the line anyone not from their buses.
The treatment was totally different with smiles for bus passengers and snarls for those not using buses.
After a crew members cleared his passengers, he wou.d be taken to an office away from the hall where rewards are likely to have been changing hands.
A passenger on one bus said they gave conductors money for fast processing at the border.
Unlike in Zimbabwe where different classes of travellers have been separated, SA groups them.
Beitbridge Rural District Council chairman Oscar Chiromo suggested on Monday that during such peak holidays the a train could be introduced between Musina and Zimbabwe.
“During the festive season NRZ should introduce daily shunting Beitbridge to Musina and Musina to Beitbridge,” Chiromo said on a platform where several Beitbridge heads of Government departments , members of parliament and the esident minister Albert Nguluvhe are members.
Chiromo said infrastructure is in place at Railways and this would ease pressure on the border post.