Cross-border hauliers are advised that the Transit Assistance Bureau (Transist) is reporting delays in both directions at Beitbridge between South Africa and Zimbabwe.
This morning a Transist member said movement in the southbound queue was “exceptionally slow”.
Northbound is not any better, it seems.
Another member said a truck that arrived at Gateway Truck Stop directly south of the control zone had only made it into Zimbabwe at 11:30.
He said this morning that the tail into Zim was stretching south of the weighbridge which is further down the N1 from Gateway.
“Please can we check why we have a constant queue there,” he said.
A clearing agent from Musina said it wasn’t clear what was causing the delay as yesterday 472 trucks were moved going north.
It’s also concerning why trucks carrying dangerous goods (DG) are allowed to mix with other trucks – not a new concern by any stretch of the imagination.
It led a regular user of the border post to say: “Why is the border not separating dangerous goods from general cargo?”
He warned that it could result in disaster, a sentiment Mike Fitzmaurice of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta) has expressed on several occasions.
It didn’t help though that the smuggling of DG and reefer or cold-chain cargo had seen such an increase, the same transporter said.
