Chaos at SA, Zim border as trucks block highway

Chaos has been reigning supreme on the South African side of Beitbridge border post where commercial trucks have closed

the N1 highway from the border post to Musina town, as they wait to complete the customs processes.

Long delays have become a common phenomenon at Sadc’s busiest inland border post as more and more commercial trucks use Zimbabwe as a transit route to the north.

Lately, the delays have been attributed to a continual system upgrade on the South African Revenue Services (SARS) automated system which prints acquittal documents known as the Customs Notification form 2 (CN2).

South Africa’s customs system is reported to have been down for days, forcing trucks to spend up to four days to cross over Zimbabwe.

Yesterday some frustrated truck drivers heading to Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Malawi, and Tanzania blocked all four lanes along the N1 highway.

For more than six hours those with small/ light cars have been struggling to travel between Musina and the Border Post.

The CN1 and CN2 forms were introduced in 2012 when SARS rolled out a Customs Modernisation process at all land ports that year.

The process included the printing of the forms as proof that cargo has followed all the relevant customs formalities in South Africa.

However, the printing of the CN1 form was discontinued in January this year to reduce the time spent at the border posts by trucks whilst

waiting for CN1s to be printed, and to the reduction of printing in support of a safe and paperless environment.

Since the beginning of the lockdown in April authorities at Beitbridge border post have been handling at least 1300 commercial trucks daily.

SARS spokesperson, Mr Siphithi Sibeko could not be reached for comment regarding the situation obtaining at Beitbridge.

However, Limpopo’s provincial spokesperson for the Department of Transport, Mr Matome Moremi said they had enlisted the services of

security agents to restore sanity on the road leading to the border.

“It is true that we are having huge volumes of commercial trucks along the N1 between the border and Musina,” he said.

“However, the South African Defence Forces (SANDF) and the South African Police Services (SAPS) are assisting to restore order.

“The transport MEC (Member of Executive Committee) has been informed of that situation and she has escalated the matter to the Transport

Minister”.

Mr Moremi added that the situation at the border had been compounded by the different standard operating procedures arising from the

different lockdown protocols in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“The challenge is that Zimbabwe is still at a high lockdown alert level, while we are at alert level 1,” he added.

As traffic kept building across the Limpopo, the Zimbabwean component of the border was half full with border officials indicating that they

were relying on the manifest notification system to avoid clogging the border.

In addition, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) recently intensified the implementation of the pre-clearance facility to speed

the flow of commercial cargo.

“Under the notification system, we only release trucks to South Africa or vice versa when all customs clearance documents have been

processed.

“This gives us room to only check the trucks for conformity and minimise the time spent at the border,” said the official.-ebusinessweekly.co.zw