Intervention this morning helped to get a trailer carrying horses to leapfrog a five-kilometre queue that had formed north of the Beitbridge border because of power supply issues in South Africa.
The animals were assisted after a transporter turned to the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta) through the body’s WhatsApp group, Transit Assistance Bureau (Transist).
According to the transporter, the equine carrier that was on its way south out of Zimbabwe was not allowed to skip the line of trucks, which seems to be growing longer every day that South Africa battles to keep the lights on because of its struggling power utility.
At the time of this morning’s desperate plea for assistance, the transporter said the line of trucks hadn’t moved for two hours.
He lambasted the situation, pointing out that livestock used to get right-of-way in times of congestion and related border backlogging at Beitbridge.
Fesarta Chief Executive Mike Fitzmaurice said he would do what he could to fast-track the live cargo past the queue.
At just after 1pm this afternoon he confirmed that concession company, Zimborders, had managed to get the horses-in-transit past the line of waiting trucks.
Prior to the successful intervention, suggestions were made for the SPCA to get involved, and questions were asked why an emergency lane through the border was not operational as had been the case in the past.
The involvement of Zimborders in rushing to the aid of the horses followed after they had apparently offered to help South Africa’s Department of Public Works with a broken generator.
Apparently, this was refused by Public Works.
At least the diesel supply to back up power-running facilities south of the border has been restored enough, from what is known, to keep systems running while South Africa endures punishing power outages.
Over the weekend, cargo processing south of the border slowed to a trickle after Eskom announced that the country’s grid was in such a state of disrepair it had no alternative other than ramping up load shedding to stage 6.
Unfortunately, the sudden jump from stage 4 appeared to catch border officials off guard, whilst a faulty generator made matters worse.
This morning a Transist member said it was unreal how diesel supply some 500 metres away from the customs area could not be utilised to keep back-up power running at the requisite levels.
The same transporter shared information sent out by the Cross-border Road Transport Agency, which said the situation at the border was attributed to congestion and an inability to deal with higher-than-usual volumes passing though Beitbridge.
