Forbes Border Post Set To Starts 24-hour Service
Forbes Border Post will be running 24 hours from Monday, 15 January to cope with an increase in haulage truck traffic and use of Mozambique’s Beira port, Zimbabwe’s closest access to the sea.
The border post is clearing about 550 haulage trucks every day.
The Herald reported that both Zimbabwe and Mozambique are ready to open the matching pair of Forbes and Machipanda border posts for 24 hours.
The Chairperson of the Forbes Committee on 24-hour Operation as well as Transport and Infrastructural Development Permanent Secretary, Joy Makumbe, on Friday announced that Forbes Border Post will be open 24 hours a day with effect from Monday. Said Makumbe:
Currently, both border posts close at 10 PM, forcing truckers to spend more time in the queues awaiting clearance.
Come Monday, we will be opening 24 hours so that we can reduce the backlog in terms of clearance of cargo.
All stakeholders in the movement of goods in and out of the country are here and we have agreed that starting on Monday, Forbes Border Post will be opening 24 hours so that we can address all the challenges affecting the smooth flow of traffic at the border.
The Mozambican Transport Minister recently had a conversation with our minister, and they said they are ready as well to open their border (Machipanda) for 24 hours, and it was left to us to be ready.
We are giving all the necessary Government agencies and other stakeholders this whole weekend to make the necessary preparations to ensure that come Monday everything is in place to run 24 hours.
Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Permanent Secretary Ambassador Raphael Faranisi said:
As the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, we are responsible for immigration formalities and security.
Since we will be opening the border 24 hours, there is a need to realign our staff, office space and accommodation of staffers. We are here to assess what is needed.
We know that as we open the border 24 hours, there will be some teething problems, but we are ready to address all these challenges.
We now have the experience to operate our borders 24 hours as Beitbridge and Chirundu are already operating round the clock.
We will also be looking for cooperation from the private sector to tell us what their needs will be as Forbes Border Post is proving to be our lifeline to the seaport of Beira.
We aim to modernise all our ports of entry into the country to increase efficiency in the discharge of our duty.
If we had resources we would have wanted to modernise all our ports of entry yesterday, but now doing everything bit by bit.
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority Commissioner (Custom and Excise) Batsirai Chadzingwa said:
As ZIMRA, we are ready to operate 24 hours at this border post as this is not the first time to have a border running 24 hours.
We are running the Beitbridge and Chirundu border posts 24 hours, so we have the experience to run the border posts 24 hours.
Our staff members are ready to quick-start the project. Yes, we have some constraints in terms of resources, but we can do with what we have to ensure that we deliver on this mandate.
We also need to look at the benefit of having a 24-hour border post as it allows the continuous movement of trucks.
Over the past few years, we have heard reports of trucks queuing for almost 13km waiting on either side of the border to be cleared when we were closing at 10 PM.
Regional immigration officer for the eastern region, Richard Tambandini, said that they have requested 6 more officers to manage the increased workload. He said:
We need to address issues of staff movements and their accommodation, but in the meantime, we will be making use of the officers at our disposal.
We have requested 6 more officers from the current 16 we have, the reason being that we will be increasing our shifts from the current two to three.
We will be having a total of four shifts, three will be at work, while another shift will be off. As the other shift breaks, the other one that will be resting will come on board.
The Forbes-Machipanda Border Post serves as a crucial trade route between Zimbabwe and Mozambique and also connects the landlocked countries of Zimbabwe and other Southern African countries to the Mozambican ports.
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