Long-distance truck drivers can take up to six days or more to pass through the heavily congested Beitbridge Border Post between South Africa and Zimbabwe, with video footage seen over the weekend showing a queue that’s four lanes abreast in places, stretching into the distance.
This morning, a transport operator said the queue was about 13 kilometres long, going all the way into Musina.
At least the lanes had thinned to two, the source said.
However, on one of the WhatsApp groups for road freight operators serving the north-south line into and through Zimbabwe, one transporter described the backlog building up north to the border as “terrible”.
Another said the queue was “ugly”.
Repulsive, certainly, is the law enforcement bribery that ensues every time truckers have to wait in traffic amassing south of the border.
Often arriving unprepared for such delays on their journeys, drivers are forced to do whatever they can to proceed.
With food, water and amenities along the N1 highway falling far short of what is necessary to cater for the waiting truckers, and with the ever-present fear of being sitting ducks for night-time prowlers who don’t hesitate to use violence to get what they want, drivers are left with little alternative.
Some have money to pay traffic officials to ‘escort’ them to the border, much to the frustration of others who have to sit in the queue – for days.
The plight of one such driver was made clear yesterday in a clip that was confidentially passed onto Freight News.
The clip in question clearly shows a line of trucks overtaking others, at speed, while the queue of drivers not paying bribes remains stationary.
The commentary of the driver in the recording, unedited, is as follows:
“These trucks are overtaking.
“They are going straight (to the border).
“They are paying the police.
“A lot of trucks, coming from behind.
“They are paying the police, look.
“When now are we going to reach the border?
“Maybe it will take another week or so.
“With all these trucks in front of me, they are just going straight to pay the police.
“They are paying R500, R600 and above.”
Last week it was reported that officials from the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) had been recorded on camera accepting bribes, as much as R1000 according to reports, offering drivers a much faster way to cross into Zimbabwe.
Those who can’t afford to bribe officials, or won’t, have no recourse other than to wait.
“Ai, it’s too difficult, eish! It’s bad,” the driver from the above clip recording said.
In the meantime, Freight News is waiting to hear from the RTMC about the allegations.
As for why cargo processing is so slow into Zimbabwe, opinions of private-sector border operators appear to differ, with some saying it’s because of Zim-side government departments not working 24/7 while others say it isn’t so.
Whatever the case may be, Beitbridge has been in the glare for congestion and corruption for some time, with public sector officials conspicuously absent when approached for comment.
In one of the last pieces of information coming through this morning, a clearing agent dealing with Beitbridge said that some drivers in the queue were on day three or four by now.
Not for the first time did it become clear that one of the worst trade transits on the continent is a humanitarian situation, at the very least deserving of private-sector intervention, if not international aid assistance.
Sounds desperate?
It is desperate.
Left to the current people in charge at Beitbridge, things are unlikely to improve at all as the border, in the words of one private-sector stakeholder, “has been a dog’s breakfast for years”.
WATCH: Trucks speed through to the Beitbridge border while others wait, allegedly because of traffic officials bribing truck drivers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPKPq2PI8w4
