Beitbridge infrastructure is on the verge of collapse, warns Zimbabwe

The Beitbridge infrastructure will
collapse by mid 2009 if nothing
is done. And both governments
are aware of this,” says Angeline Mashiri,
the head of the Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority (Zimra) at Beitbridge.
“I have already written to get authority
to use the old bridge for vehicle traffic
again; we are now just waiting for the
bridge to be inspected.
“Depending on the recommendation
of the inspectors, we have a number of
options on how to utilise the bridge. We
can separate the north and southbound
traffic via the old and new bridge or,
if we cannot run commercial traffic on
the old bridge, we can run it on the new
bridge and use the old bridge for private
traffic.
“Processes are not the problem,
infrastructure is. As long as we do
not have four lanes to South Africa
and four lanes to Zimbabwe we will
have problems. Currently all lanes
convert into one which is a major cause
of congestion.”
Mashiri also notes that the lack of
pre-clearance and adequate parking
for commercial vehicles on the South
African side is a major problem.
“Traffic should flow continuously.
We can move 30 cars, 20 empty trucks
and 20 loads from Zimbabwe but then
we have to wait for parking spaces to
become available on the South African
side or all the traffic gets stuck on the
bridge. We currently have guys with
walkie-talkies on the bridge to let us
know when there are parking spaces for
trucks.
“All trucks, except for those
originating locally, have to be precleared
in Harare for Zimbabwe or else
they are turned back at the border post.
But this is not the case for South Africa
and they are therefore not ready for the
trucks from our side. The ideal would be
for all trucks to have pre-clearance for
both sides of the border as this will ease
congestion considerably.
“On the part of Sars and Zimra, we
have really tried and I am getting all the
co-operation I need. What is not spread
over the 24 hours that we are open is
the movement of trucks. There is a need
for some form of professionalism from
all stakeholders. The industry needs to
complement each other.
“Agents must get up if they are
phoned at two in the morning and
a truck is waiting or otherwise the
transporters need to go to someone else
who will. Mismanagement in the offices
of transporters should not become the
problem of customs.”