Crossing The Border In Five Minutes

End of year traffic for Beitbridge is characterised mainly by two waves, massive chaotic northbound in December and a similar and even more and stressful southbound tsunami come mid January.

This writer has been at Beitbridge for the past decade and it seems no matter how much the authorities prepare it somehow ends up with cries of inefficiency by Zimra (Northbound) and South African Immigration (Southbound) and little has been said about the travelling public and yet they play a very crucial role in efficient service delivery at the border.

The border when it was designed, very few people used to travel between the two countries and then it was mainly the affluent who then could afford going on holiday. The border used to close at 1800hrs as late late 1990's, it was extended to 2000hrs for almost a year in the early 2000's and eventually to 24/7 when it became clear that traffic both human and vehicular had increased.

One thing though remained the same. The design of the border post.

A simple issue like a car breaking down on the southgate going to South Africa will plug  and block all the trucks, buses and cars going to South Africa. To make things worse, there are no emergency and safety preparedness measures put in place, a standby tow truck for example. Last time when the statewarehouse  caught fire it burnt down because the firefighting truck was small and badly equipped. We believe with the new era a lot is going in that direction in order to improve the situation.

We noticed that the border can be congested in less than ten minutes, all that you need are five buses coming in one after the other and twenty private cars and five Malaitsha mini buses and that will take over an hour of full throttle passport stamping. Mix that with a few who do not have proper documentation for the cars a parent or two who do not have affidavits to take children out of or into a country then the chaos begins.

So how do you cross the border quickly?

1. Get to the border early and avoid congestion prone days like end of a weekend or holiday (southbound) or beginning of a weekend or holiday (northbound).

2. Get as much information about the border as possible and have proper documentation ready in one place.

With proper information the border is a walk through and some people do it everytime.