Frustrating days at border for truckers
Long wait to cross Beitbridge driving truck drivers mad
Truck drivers using the South African-Zimbabwe Beitbridge border post say that since the
Covid-19 lockdown started‚ it can take days to get through.
Trucks going to Zimbabwe‚ Zambia and the DRC use the border post, one of the busiest on the continent.
When GroundUp visited on Wednesday‚ the queue of trucks was about a kilometre long and the wait about two days. A week ago it stretched almost 10km into SA from Beitbridge and took five days to get through.
“I joined the queue at 11pm on Saturday evening. Now‚ it’s 10am Sunday morning. I have not moved even 100m.
I have to keep awake ... so that I do not block other drivers. Just imagine spending two days without proper resting‚” Audicious Mudzviti told GroundUp.
His Zimbabwean compatriot, Frank Moyo‚ said: “Before lockdown, it used to take two hours to cross into Zimbabwe. Now it’s almost a week. From Johannesburg to Zambia a single trip is almost two weeks.”
He said he used to do up to three trips between Johannesburg and Zambia in two weeks‚ but now manages just one in the same time.
“I have no time for my family‚ who are in Harare‚” he said.
Drivers can spend a week without a proper bath.
Before lockdown‚ most drivers said they spent about R200 on food on a trip. They used to buy from food stalls at the border‚ but these were closed under Covid-19 regulations. They now spend closer to R700 for food.
Some drivers said long waits at the border exposed them to criminals.
“Always stay next to your vehicle‚” Limpopo MEC for transport and community safety Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya advised drivers.
On Wednesday she told GroundUp: “We are still on lockdown and we have to check Covid-19 compliance with truck drivers – face masks and we have to screen them... We also have to be stricter on what we do for the safety of both the drivers and the countries they will be travelling to‚ hence the long queues.”