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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
The Department of Immigration has deployed 26 permanent officers to Beitbridge Border Post where perennial staff shortages have been hindering the smooth flow of both human and vehicular traffic.

Prior to the latest development, the department was operating with a low strength staff of 52 officers against a requirement of 80.

Beitbridge Border Post is one of the busiest inland ports of entry in southern Africa with 170 000 people, 2 100 buses, 25 000 private cars and 15 000 trucks passing through every month.

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The head of immigration services at the border post Mr Notius Tarisai said the new officers started work yesterday.

He said they had received 11 female and 15 male immigration officers.

“We have started inducting them to the operations at the border post and this is a major boost for us as a department.

“You will note that Beitbridge Border Post had been understaffed for a very long time and hence the need to beef up our staff.

“In previous years we have been relying on relief staff during peak times, but this development will see us performing at full strength and to the expectations of the travelling public. In essence the presence of the department of immigration will be felt at the border post,” he said.

He said the department was now operating with 78 officers including support staff, adding that the deployment of more officers to Beitbridge will ensure that they attend to all the immigration aspects in the area, some of which they were failing to work on due to staff shortages.

Mr Tarisai said although traffic had increased at the border post as many Zimbabweans based in South Africa were trickling in for the Christmas and New Year holidays, the situation was still manageable.

The department is processing an average of 20 000 arrivals per day.

“At the moment we have a steady flow of traffic both on departures and arrivals.

“We have deployed our staff adequately and we are expecting the volume of traffic on the arrivals to rise between Tuesday and Wednesday evening”, said Mr Tarisai.

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority last week beefed up its staff with 40 workers from less busy stations.

zimra’s Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs Ms Florence Jambwa said the additional staff would assist in carrying out all processes relating to the movement of travellers and goods.

“Additional clearance points for processing all documentation required have also been established to augment (numbers) already at the station.

“We have always deployed reasonable numbers to allow travellers to be served promptly.

“However, the flow of traffic is not predictable.”