PREPARATIONS have been made for private motorists and pedestrians to use safely the land border posts from tomorrow with the deployment of more staff and equipment on course, and strict health safety measures in place.
Zimbabwe has five major border posts at Beitbridge,
Plumtree, Chirundu, Victoria Falls, and Forbes.
Officials from the Ministry of Health and Child Care have
been testing officials at the border posts for Covid-19 to ensure all working
are fit for duty and a new standard operating procedure has been drawn up to
guide the handling of travellers under the new normal.
The preparations come after Home Affairs Minister, Kazembe
Kazembe met his South African counterpart, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi in Beitbridge on
Friday last week to ensure proceedures on both sides of Zimbabwe’s busiest
border post were harmonised before the re-opening of the post tomorrow to
pedestrian passenger traffic and private cars.
Buses follow in the first quarter of next year after
assessments and in light of required Covid-19 preventative measures. Beitbridge
used to clear seven million travellers a year before the Covid-19 restrictions.
When our sister paper, The Herald visited the border post
yesterday workmen were busy placing signs to direct visitors on how they are
supposed to move around border post and hand basins for sanitisation had also
been placed at strategic places around the immigration halls.
Cabinet recently approved the re-opening of the land
borders to people traffic starting with private motorists and pedestrians and
with public transport at some stage in the first quarter of next year.
Department of Immigration’s spokesperson Mrs Memory
Mugwagwa said the department was hard at work to ensure a seamless passage of
travellers at Beitbridge.
“We have recalled to work all those immigration officers
who had been exempted from duty to curb the spread of Covid-19,” she said.
“Team building and re-orientation to Covid-19 preventative measures recommended
by the World Health Organization is being effected.”
Adequate protective clothing and equipment for immigration
officers to cover the anticipated traffic had been acquired. All immigration
officers will be on duty from Tuesday and all leave days and off days have been
cancelled until the peak period is over.
“In addition, the Immigration (computerised) system has
been serviced in preparation for the re-opening of the border. Compliance teams
who will be executing enforcement duties involving close contact with
travellers have been adequately oriented on social distancing and case
handling,” said Mrs Mugwagwa.
The installation of multiple test sites to decongest the
single Covid-19 checkpoint on the bridge and construction of wheel baths, she
said, is pending.
Mrs Mugwagwa said already port’s health teams were
implementing separate screening points for ease of doing business at the
border.
It is also understood that those in security services have
since been deployed to prevent touts, bogus agents and vendors from entering
the border arena.
Zimra spokesperson Mr Francis Chimanda said the authority
had pitched a tent in the holding bay and addressed network connectivity to
allow processing of ETIPs. More receipting points for payments and the
provision of additional computers, and the deployment of relief staff, had been
done.
A holding area to clear private vehicles through an
established and dedicated route for ease of movement has been created.
“The continuous disinfections at serving points in the yard
for travelling clients and Zimra staff is very critical,” he said. “Currently
we are implementing a regulated model for the movement of cross-border buses as
agreed between transporters and the Zimbabwe Consular General in South Africa.
“Further, there are new scales of fines imposed on errant
bus operators, clearing agents and transporters to deter would-be offenders.
Elsewhere the Head of Immigration at Plumtree, Mr Blessing
Marwa, said they had mobilised more manpower to boost their staff and procured
the requisite Covid-19 protective wear.
“We are being pro-active and tying all loose ends to ensure
that we are not found wanting. The deployment of a standby ambulance, setting
up of a holding bay, allocation of escort vehicles is pending,” said Mr Marwa.
He said they were finalising the procedure to escort and
quarantine those who will present Covid-19-related symptoms upon arrival at the
border post.
In Chirundu the Regional Immigration officer Mr Joshua
Chibundu said they were ready for tomorrow.
“We are ready in terms of Government’s position that
borders open on December 1 for vehicular and pedestrian traffic,” said Mr
Chibundu.
“We can safely say that in the absence of some unforeseen
circumstances we are ready to handle traffic.” Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment