Lebombo experiment to be rolled out country-wide, writes Leonard Neill
THE SUCCESSFUL flow of traffic through the Lebombo border post during the December period has encouraged the National Inter-Departmental Structure (NIDS) for Border Control to implement the same systems at all border posts throughout the country.
Lebombo was an experiment devised to ease congestion in peak periods and, says NIDS executive officer Brian van Niekerk, it worked like a dream.
The major aim was to separate traffic flow with freight vehicles moving aside from passenger traffic and specialised attention points enabling quicker clearance.
What we did was to have clearing agents moving away from the border offices to new positions where they were able to handle preclearing far quicker. It amounted to asking them to go back a few metres to a new position and this proved most successful. It is something we are going to introduce at all border control points.
There was a heavy volume of road freight travelling throughout the December period but there were few delays. In fact we received complaints from the roadside hawkers who stated they had insufficient time to sell their wares. That speaks for itself.
The seven kilometre queues of past years are now history and we are looking to a far better national border post set-up in the year ahead. We have invited comments from all concerned and will be holding a major meeting on January 23 when further plans will be decided.
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