Govt finalises transport arrangements for returnees
GovernMent has finalised transport arrangements for over 3 000 needy returnees from South Africa expected to be ferried by buses to their various provincial destinations for the mandatory eight-day quarantine upon arrival.
A fleet of Zupco buses will be on standby at Beitbridge Border Post once dates for their arrival have been announced, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare deputy minister Lovemore Matuke has said.
“Buses will be waiting here to take them (returnees) from Beitbridge to their provincial destinations for quarantine. As soon as they are screened, they will be ferried to those destinations. earlier, there was some confusion, but we have since rectified that,” he said.
Speaking to journalists in Beitbridge at the weekend where he was part of a high-ranking officials team that was assessing the preparedness of Beitbridge for the CovID-19 response, Matuke reaffirmed quarantine for those arriving in large numbers would be at their provinces of destinations.
He said government has had to rethink after securing the former rainbow Hotel premises, owned by the national Social Security
Authority, in Beitbridge, where all returnees were to be placed under mandatory quarantine .
the under-resourced Beitbridge quarantine centre can only hold 260 inmates, but was currently struggling with about 50 inmates.
“Because the returnees we currently hold came at different times and will complete their quarantine periods as they come, we have set aside transport budgets for them and they will also receive some out-of-pocket allowance for their journeys,” Matuke said.
Some returnees have capacity to fund their journeys and information from South African indicated that a bus company had been secured for that category at r600 per head from Johannesburg to Beitbridge.
that fare excludes luggage, but already, some transporters have described it as exploitative considering the same journey on a normal trip costs half that amount.
“the r600 per head excluding luggage is exploitative and typical of people expecting to benefit from a crisis. ordinarily, that trip costs r300 and if the amount is cognitive of the return trip of the bus, it will be empty and using less fuel,” a transport broker in Beitbridge said.