South Africa’s Beitbridge border into Zimbabwe is this morning effectively cut off by trucks queueing three abreast on the road south to Musina, severing a crucial lifeline for all-purpose and specialised cargo and blocking one of the region’s busiest crossings for pedestrians and smaller vehicles.
According to Transit Assistance Bureau (Transist), the northbound queue is the worst it has ever been at Beitbridge, with the line stretching all the way to the China Mall on the outskirts of Musina some 13 kilometres south of the border.
And as has happened in the past, when anger simmered among truck drivers waiting patiently and fed up with bribery from traffic officials willing to ‘escort’ less scrupulous truckers to the border, the situation has been allowed to deteriorate thanks to the apparent inaction of authorities.
In video footage sent to Transist, a driver recorded rigs making a third queue on the extreme right-hand side of the single-lane highway to the border.
Construction work that is currently under way to widen the road is also being scuppered by cars trying to use a dirt road next to the N1.
But one man’s desperation to skip the cargo queue and get to the border increases another man’s frustration as it only leads to more bottlenecking at the border.
Incensed by the situation, some drivers have packed rocks on the dirt road in an attempt to prevent smaller vehicles from making a bad situation worse.
In the Transist video a motorist can be seen exiting his vehicle to roll away a rock.
Transist also reported that in one instance a tree trunk had been dragged across the dirt road to stop smaller vehicles from ducking the queue.
In yet more attempts to prevent the build-up at the customs control area immediately south of the border, empty trucks are going onto the dirt road to block bypassing traffic.
The most conspicuous problem of all, perceptible on the Transist video through not being seen at all, is the wholesale absence of traffic officials.
Last week a high-level visit by representatives from several government authorities responsible for the border resulted in significant decongestion at the border, with traffic officers for a change succeeding in regulating traffic as opposed to charging truckers R1000 in back-hand ‘facilitation fees’ for express passage to the border.
The queue was reduced to a single lane – what it should be – and northbound traffic started flowing again.
Unfortunately the respite was brief.
Once the executives left, the border reverted to being a dog’s breakfast.
With traffic north having ground to a complete standstill, Beitbridge again is the single biggest concern for South Africa’s freight interests on the North-South Corridor from the Port of Durban to the Copperbelt area in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
And while Beitbridge has never been an easy border, it’s easily the worst it has ever been, with border officials shrugging shoulders and pointing fingers at each other while trade facilitators ventilate issues through webinars.
In the meantime transporters are feeling the real effect of a rampantly inefficient border.
Let’s not even mention the inhumanity of long-distance truck drivers forced to wait for up to three days in soaring temperatures on a road where amenities are scant at best, absent and inadequate at worst.
No wonder congestion south of the border is such good business for corrupt traffic officials.
Who would want to be stuck in a truck when you can pay your way to the front of the Beitbridge queue.
