As long as Zimbabwe’s Covid-19 dawn-to-dusk curfew is in place the Beitbridge border it seems will remain a headache for hauliers, especially for transporters and truck drivers going north.
For weeks now the crossing for cargo from South Africa into its neighbour directly north has been a choke point, resulting in truck queues sometimes stretching all the way back to Musina.
The 6pm-6am infection-containment strategy instituted by Zimbabwe has had a major impact on human resource efficiencies at the border, and has left industry bodies like the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta) hard pressed to find solutions for the notoriously congested crossing.
Over the past long weekend the importance of having personnel who fulfil certain functions working round the clock at a 24/7 border was once again emphasised when customs on the Zim side lacked a stamping officer.
“It seems to me that in Africa the stamp rules,” said Fesarta chief executive, Mike Fitzmaurice.
He added that at least the queue had been halved to the Baobab Truck Park north of the China Mall some 12 kilometres from the border.
Over the weekend though the queue reached all the way to the mall, which happens regularly to trucks waiting to proceed north.
Mercifully though corrupt traffic officers appear to have stopped extorting money from drivers in exchange for escorting them to the front of the line.
That practice almost led to night-time unrest recently when rigs started blocking the road, preventing bribe-payers from jumping the queue.
“At least that seems to have stopped,” Fitzmaurice said.
“We’re also not too sure. No one is reporting anything so we can only assume there’s none of that at the moment.”
