Tinashe Chiwanza, General Manager at CFR Clearances highlights recent congestion at Chirunda to TWA saying that the queue was brought to his attention on 16 November (the attached photographs on the 17th and 18th).

“We started noticing long queues on the 16th prompting us to do checks with Zambia to see if all is in order. The Zambian scanner is operating but scanning slowly and this resulted in the long queue on the Zimbabwean side.”

‘I measured the queue and it was 2.3km stretching from the border post to Shashe Petroleum.”

“The Trisource truck inn was full of abnormal trucks which I suspect were unable to manoeuvre out of the gate. At the time there was also no space for Abnormal trucks park on the Zambian side. This congestion might be due to an influx of trucks since we are drawing close to the festive season and that has led the border to become busier than it has been over the past two months ago.”

“The Zambian scanner is also another main contributor since it operates between 08:0 to 10:00 (breakfast), 10:30 to 13:00 (lunchtime), and 14:00 to 16:00 while ZIMRA opens at 0600hrs to 1800hrs.”

“Another concern was the time a truck was taking to cross the border and we discovered on average it took four hours, however it can be more depending with where the truck is positioned.”

“We have engaged with ZIMRA to contact their ZRA counterparts to speed up their clearances so as to reduce road queue on the Zimbabwean side.”