THOUSANDS of Zimbabwean cross-border informal traders and bus operators are bribing their way to illegally get in and out of South Africa on a daily basis despite the closure of land borders to ordinary travellers.

Some of the buses are linked to named top government officials, among them a cabinet minister, but the links could not be verified by the time of going to print.

The scam has exposed immigration and customs officials as well as the police and army who are allegedly being paid to bend the law by allowing the unsanctioned travel by the traders.

Early this year, government promulgated Statutory Instrument (SI) 87A of 2021, which banned the movement of non-essential service providers in a bid to slow down the spread of Covid-19.

Unauthorised passengers

However, investigations carried out by The Standard, in conjunction with Information for Development Trust, a non-profit making organisation that supports journalists to investigate stories on public sector corruption and bad governance, revealed that authorities were receiving bribes to let unauthorised passengers into and from South Africa.

Investigations busted numerous operators as being among those that ply the Harare-Johannesburg route.

The majority of the passengers are the informal traders, who go across the border to buy wares for resale in Zimbabwe.

The buses use various pickup and drop-off points in Harare and other cities such as Gweru, Bulawayo and Masvingo.

In Harare, the buses pick up travellers mainly from the Roadport terminus on the eastern side of the central business district and High Glen station, located at a shopping mall just outside the capital adjacent to the south-western suburb of Budiriro.

But other buses pick up passengers close to the Boka Tobacco Auction Floors, near Glen Norah suburb in the capital.

The High Glen terminus is busier than Roadport, with investigations establishing that at least 40 buses drove in and out of the former on a daily basis.

With a standard bus carrying 65 passengers, this would translate to around 3 000 passengers getting into South Africa every day from one terminus only, the majority of whom are travelling illegally.

At both High Glen and Roadport, the buses leave the terminus at different times from late afternoon, meaning that they cover most of the distance to the Beitbridge border post during night time.

Police watch

Other buses arrive from South Africa and passengers freely offload their luggage.

A police post is located a few metres away from the terminus, whose details sometimes patrol the bus station.

The operators and crew pay scant regard to Covid-19 safety regulations, in violation of SI87A, as they do not disinfect their buses or test passengers — most of whom do not wear face masks or use hand sanitisers — for temperature.

SI87A of 2021 also says “(d) every public transport service driver must, no less frequently than once in every calendar month, undergo the test required to obtain a PCR [polymerase chain reaction] Covid-19-free certificate, and may not be employed as such unless he or she has obtained that certificate”.

However, it was established that the drivers of the buses were not adhering to this regulation.

The bus crews, it was established, routinely misrepresent their destinations, claiming on the route logs that they would be ferrying the passengers only as far as Beitbridge.

Normally, a traveller passes through at least 15 police checkpoints between Harare and the border post, in addition to mobile highway patrols.

While the buses get stopped at the checkpoints, they always pass, with some travellers who talked to The Standard testifying that the crew pay bribes to the police details manning the roadblocks.

Before the borders were closed, a coach trip form Harare to Johannesburg was R600 on average. But the charges have been hiked four-fold.

This publication is in possession of audio recordings of bus operators explaining how they bribe authorities at the border to ferry non-essential service providers into South Africa in violation of the lockdown measures.

A High Glen tout, who said he worked for several bus companies, revealed that his employers had increased the total transport fee to R2 500 per single trip.

His work involves soliciting for passengers and marketing the Harare-Johannesburg trips through social media.

Bribing the officials

“The fare increase caters for the bribing of immigration and police officers,” he explained.