Truck movement through South Africa’s border posts of Beitbridge and Lebombo with Zimbabwe and Mozambique on the Maputo Corridor was this morning said to be clear after last week’s scenes of chaos at these crossings.
According to Mike Fitzmaurice, chief executive of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations, road haulage through Beitbridge was flowing freely in both directions.
At Lebombo too, where traffic into South Africa had queued for up to 25 kilometres east of Mozambique’s Ressano Garcia Border Post, truck movement had eased substantially from Saturday morning.
This was confirmed this morning by a clearing agent on the Transit Assistance Bureau (Transist) WhatsApp group.
Fitzmaurice added that it had come as welcome news this morning that South Africa’s department of home affairs (DHA) had announced that its parliamentary portfolio committee (PC) would be visiting Beitbridge tomorrow and Lebombo on Thursday.
“We seem to have created enough media hype to get the attention of the politicians,” he said.
DHA PC chair Bongani Bongo said a primary motivation for the visits would be to encourage the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to explore lasting solutions for the two borders where regular congestion, especially in relation to Beitbridge, had led to loss of life over December.
According to South African daily newspaper The Citizen, Bongo said: “The committee was concerned by the conditions people faced at these borders which posed humanitarian and health risks”.
He emphasised that the visits would be used to interact with the departments at the ports of entry to ascertain if resolutions had been found to challenges faced at these sites.
A logistics representative whose name is known to Freight News said although it was commendable that high-ranking public representatives would be visiting the borders, it was a little late in the day for such intervention.
“The politicians always visit when the borders are clear and there’s no congestion.”
