The preclearance compliance of cross-border hauliers using the Beitbridge crossing between South Africa and Zimbabwe has resulted in road freight processing times not recorded in decades.
According to the latest GPS data received from the once heavily congested transit, it is now taking less than 12 hours for a truck to pass through the border.
According to Mike Fitzmaurice, chief director of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations, the latest on-average processing times are:
- Four hours from Zimbabwe into South Africa.
- Eight hours from South Africa into Zimbabwe.
To put it into perspective, at the Kazungula Bridge across the Zambezi between Botswana and Zambia, processing still takes longer than 24 hours on average.
The difference though is that Kazungula is a single-window one-stop border post compared to Beitbridge which isn’t.
Closer comparison reveals that at Kazungula it takes up to 25 hours for northbound trucks entering Zambia.
The backhaul is much faster (as is usually the case, at Beitbridge as well), taking two hours.
The sheer speed with which cargo was now being processed at Beitbridge, where week-long waiting queues had been the norm as recently as early October, was simply because transporters were adhering to preclearing procedures, Fitzmaurice explained.
He said trucks arriving at the border were sent to a truck yard if the requisite border transit documentation was not in order, from where they were marshalled towards a holding area.
He added that fines of R20 000 had been recently introduced by the SA Revenue Service for non-compliance with clearing procedures.
Although he couldn’t say how much fines are in Zimbabwe, he emphasised that trucks had three hours to clear the border control zone in Zimbabwe.
If they exceed that period and it’s found they are non-compliant, they are fined.
The habit of some drivers idling south of the border, preferring to stay over and have the full use of a three-day transit pass in respect of Zim-registered drivers, had also been stopped, Fitzmaurice said.
