In this week’s episode of Carte Blanche, the team pays a visit to one of the region’s busiest border posts - the Beitbridge port of entry into Zimbabwe - which has a become representation of all that is wrong with the country’s borders. 

Added to the woes at the border lies the controversial erection of a more than R37 million barbed wire fence during the Coronavirus pandemic. The move led by the public works department has been heavily criticised, with the fence being regularly vandalised as illegal immigration upticks. 

Carte Blanche presenter, Macfarlane Moleli, interviews founder and former Executive Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Jakkie Cilliers, amongst others, to gain insight into what is needed to safeguard the country’s borders and to analyse the current situation at Beitbridge.

Moleli says they saw a lot of people walking past a heavy military presence at the border. He says locals have informed him that the situation at the border is worsening. Traffic volumes appear to be up and not all of it is attributed to smuggling, says Moleli. The price of food in Zimbabwe is escalating and as a result, there are a lot of people crossing into South Africa to purchase food. There are reports of 20-30 vans on any given day assisting people with their groceries.

The public works minister, Patricia de Lille, has vehemently defended the erection of the fence only conceding to City Press that they did not adhere to all the procurement procedures - advertising of the bid - due to the state of emergency. 

OFM News recently reported on concerns in the Free State regarding the relaxing of procurement procedures during the state of emergency.

OFM News