A NEW era beckons for Beitbridge District in Matabeleland South as President Mnangagwa is expected to visit the border town today where he will officially commission some of the completed works under the ongoing US$300 million border modernisation and upgrade project.
The project whose ground-breaking ceremony was presided
over by President Mnangagwa in July 2018, is one of the key economic and developmental
initiatives being spearheaded by the Second Republic in Matabeleland region.
The project has transformed the face of the border town and
created more than 2 000 jobs for locals in line with the National Development
Strategy 1 (NDS1) and Vision 2030, which seeks to attain an upper middle-income
economy.
The upgrading and modernisation of the Beitbridge Border
Post will also speed up implementation of the One-Stop Border Post (OSBP)
concept between Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The Herald yesterday visited some of the projects set for
commissioning and observed workers who were busy on site. Already the freight
terminal is up and running while the bus terminal for public use is also
operational.
The new terminals were built for each vehicle category
including new parking areas and feeder roads. New cargo scanning equipment has
been installed to allow for faster inspection of goods and detection of fraud,
contraband and potential threats such as explosives and radioactive materials,
among others.
Manual unloading and inspection has been reduced following
the installation of a new ICT system, which allows an automated queuing and
payment system for truckers.
Other facilities under the project include a fire station,
220 housing units for Government workers, a new Vehicle Inspectorate Depot
(VID), an agriculture and animal quarantine, an 11,4 megalitres water reservoir
and the dualisation of a carriageway from the border post to an intersection of
the Beitbridge-Bulawayo Highway and civil works are being rolled out in three
phases among them pre-commencement works (phase one), internal border
infrastructure development (phase two) and outside border infrastructure
development (phase three).
The final phase of the Beitbridge Border Post modernisation
and upgrade is expected to be completed next year in June.
A bird’s eye view of the recently completed 5km dual
carriage way in Beitbridge that links the port of entry and major highways
leading to Bulawayo and Harare. — Picture: Thupeyo Muleya.
The project is being implemented through a public-private
partnership arrangement with ZimBorders Consortium and is the biggest
investment for any city so far in the country.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and
Infrastructure Development, Engineer Theodius Chinyanga said President
Mnangagwa will today commission the completed freight and bus terminals at
Beitbridge Border Post.
“The border facilities, which His Excellency President
Mnangagwa is going to commission are now 88 percent complete and they include
the freight and bus terminal building,” he said.
“The border is now divided into three distinct routes and
the first route is the freight terminal one, which will be used by truckers and
we have the buses route and the commercial vehicle route.
“This was done in order to enhance efficiency because these
three routes have distinct demands on the border agencies hence we have
separated them. We separated the routes because we noted that some people in
the buses will be carrying goods that need to be declared and scanned
differently.”
Eng Chinyanga said new scanners have been installed on each
route to ensure that border agencies are able to detect suspicious cargo.
“We also have a new weigh bridge installed for VID
inspections. This project, which is the upgrading and modernisation of
Beitbridge Border Post commenced in 2018 and is one of the biggest
private-public partnership projects in the country,” he said.
“Government partnered Zimborders, a consortium of
Zimbabwean and South African businesspeople and the funding is underwritten by
South African banks, which shows a lot of confidence in the policies instituted
by the Second Republic.”
Eng Chinyanga said the project has core and non-core
activities. Core activities are those that are within the border and these are
the new passenger building, freight terminal building, warehouses, a modern VID
offices within the border, which are meant to facilitate efficiency.
“We have a new system that has integrated the entire border
processes,” he said. Herald
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