international travel borders

A general view of the empty Beitbridge border post near Musina, on 1 October, 2020. Photo: AFP/Phill Magakoe

Beitbridge border: Home Affairs Committee wants action

Travellers have been queuing up by the Beitbridge border post, many with the hopes of seeing their families during the festive season

international travel borders

A general view of the empty Beitbridge border post near Musina, on 1 October, 2020. Photo: AFP/Phill Magakoe

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs has called for urgent intervention at the country’s Beitbridge border post with Zimbabwe.

In light of the festive season, travellers seeking to cross the border, in large numbers, have made mobility impossible at the border. Many have been stuck at the border for days, wanting to go home and spend the holidays.

The committee’s chairperson Advocate Bongani Bongo has called for immense action be taken to ease the queues of travellers at the border.

“While we understand the need for stringent health checks necessitated by COVID-19, we are also cognisant of the strategic importance of the Beit Bridge crossing to trade in Africa. It is in this context that strategies should have been put in place to mitigate such an occurrence, especially in relation to reducing operating hours,” Bongo said.

Bongo has also stressed the importance of the relevant stakeholders, including the Department of Home Affairs, together with sister departments operating at ports of entry, to develop and implement emergency strategies that will alleviate the congestion at that border crossing.

Home Affairs Committee: There needs to be easy movement across borders

Bongo said the congestion has also highlighted the urgent need to operationalise the Border Management Agency, which will improve the agility in dealing with such situations in the future.

He said the committee however, remains cognisant of the need to ensure efforts of slowing down the spread of COVID-19 are strengthened, “thus those intervention plans must incorporate COVID-19 mitigation strategies”.

This is amid a second wave of COVID-19 infections.

“Central to the call for mitigating strategies, is the need to find a workable balance between ensuring reasonable ease of movement of people across the border, ease of movement of goods to enable trade, and ensuring that we achieve the goal of reducing transmission of the disease,” Bongo said.

He added that he hoped that government would move with speed to ensure that issues related to border control, are addressed.

At the same time, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said he has turned down a request for a delegation of Zimbabwean ministers to be deployed to the country, in an effort to help deal with congestion at the border.

The Zimbabwe government claims it had come up with a good plan to address the matter.