via Beitbridge: 12hr delays for travellers 16/12/2014
TRAVELLERS are enduring twelve-hour delays at Beitbridge on the South African side as the annual pile up at the region’s busiest border posts begins.
South Africa’s home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba visited the transit point Tuesday to find long queues of cars and people trying to make their way across the border into Zimbabwe.
Travellers expressed frustration at the delays saying the authorities should have anticipated the problems and put in place measures to ease the congestion.
Austin Njuga, travelling home to Bulawayo, told the SA based New Age publication: “It is terrible.
“I do not know what is causing the delay that has seen some people spend a night in queues.”
Estimates put the number of Zimbabweans now resident in South Africa at more than a million.
Most of these, along with other foreign nationals living in South Africa return home to be with their families during for the Christmas and New Year holidays resulting in massive congestion at the border post.
Beitbridge is also the main gateway for commercial traffic to countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.
After getting through immigration formalities on the South African side of the border, travellers must also endure even longer delays on the Zimbabwean side.
And adding to the nightmare for most holidaymakers is the profiteering by public transport operators who double fares to benefit from the increased numbers of people keen to get back home in time for Christmas.
A conductor at the Braamfontein bus rank said the fare per-head from Johannesburg to Harare had substantially “gone up from R400 to R700. We increase the prices in December every year”.
A Malawian cross- border bus driver, Lloyd Kalilombe, said the fare from SA to Malawi had also increased – from R1000 to R1500 per person.
“Christmas is the busiest time. This is the only time we can make real money,” he said.
“But the problem at the border is that people buy a lot of furniture (household appliances) and groceries to take home.
“Some have to be unloaded off the bus and reloaded again for customs clearance, which takes a lot of our time.”
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