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SANDF soldiers on patrol
The joint committee’s fact-finding visit ended with presentations by officials manning the border. There is a high rate of illegal border jumping and smuggling of illicit goods and hijacked vehicles along the border.
The SANDF says continued cuts in its budget allocation negatively affect its ability to sufficiently guard Beitbridge and other borders.
“We have been presenting to structures of government indicating our challenges and requesting the necessary resources but the defunding of the SANDF for the past 15 years now on going and that does affect our work and when the joint standing committee decided to come on the ground I was very excited and what happened yesterday because now they know what happens in person,” says SANDF Joint Operations Chief Lt. General Siphiwe Sangweni.
The committee will be recommending that additional funds be allocated to the SANDF in order to urgently dismantle criminal syndicates that operate at Beitbridge.
“We’ve come here many times, and we have listened to all of these challenges. Some of them I listened when I was Minister of Home Affairs almost 10 years ago so we have got to insist on implementation of the various recommendations because the things that we have seen are actually worrisome, the ease with which people flow between the countries, how they are able to evade the established port of entry and use unofficial entry points which have been established which have got syndicates operating on them and they have even developed infrastructure to help them to cross into South Africa we have got to put a stop to that,” says Co-Chairperson of Joint Standing Committee on Defence, Dr Malusi Gigaba.
Meanwhile, the Border Management Authority says it will be inspecting all vehicles leaving the country to prevent the movement of large quantities of medicine out of South Africa. This comes after boxes of medicine were found at the scene of the bus crash that killed 43 people on the N1 outside Louis Trichardt last weekend.
The bus was ferrying 91 passengers to Malawi and Zimbabwe from Gqeberha.
“We have already issued an instruction that all buses that are leaving, all vehicles that are leaving, we have to look at things like that. But like as I am saying, there are medications that are for a person. You can’t take them if it is a large confinement, obviously that we have to do it. It is a worry, but we have never had a situation like that at the port,” explains Major General David Chilembe from the Border Management Authority.
While the parliamentary process unfolds, illegal activities continue to plague the border.
Video: Assessment of operations at Zimbabwe border
