Botswana shuts door on Zimbabwe TTD holders

BOTSWANA will not accept Zimbabwean Temporary Travel Documents with effect from Monday, an official has said.

Assistant regional immigration officer-in-charge of the Western Region, based at Plumtree Border Post Mr Nqobile Ncube said their Botswana counterparts have officially notified them of the development.

“The Botswana Immigration Department has officially notified us that they will not be accepting the Zimbabwean TTDs as authentic travel documents starting from 1 April.”

“There is nothing much that we can do to reverse this decision because we have tried to engage them, but they have clearly indicated that they will be rejecting our TTDs and we cannot force them to do otherwise.”

Mr Ncube said Botswana immigration officials did not give reasons for the development. “People should just take note of this new development as it will affect them,” he said.

In 2010, South Africa banned the use of emergency travel documents (ETDs) and other travel papers by countries in the Sadc region as it sought to align its immigration system with advanced security checks.

Following the development, hundreds of Zimbabwean travellers were turned back at the South African border. Mr Ncube said Plumtree Border Post was getting overwhelmed with travellers as the number of people either entering or leaving the country keeps rising.

“Yesterday, we recorded a slight increase in the number of travellers with about 4 000 being cleared either entering or leaving the country. On a normal day we clear an average of 1 500 travellers, but by 4pm yesterday the number had increased.”

Mr Ncube said they had made arrangements to handle the increase in the number of travellers due to Easter.

“We have arranged for a full staff turnout during the Easter Holiday and as such we do not expect the number of travellers to exceed our working capacity. We will be using outside counters as extra clearing points to ensure that people are not stuck at the border,” he said.

Mr Ncube said his office had engaged its Botswana counterparts to avoid a repeat of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays when travellers spent long hours in queues waiting to be cleared at Ramokgwebana Border Post.

“We have been holding several meetings with officials from the Botswana side in the run-up to the Easter Holiday to ensure that they are ready to handle the increase in the number of travellers being cleared.

“What I can say is that they have increased the capacity of their computers, the number of staff, clearance points and they have also upgraded their system. From our own assessment, we are confident that this time around they will be able to handle whatever traffic comes their way,” he said.