It was business as usual at Zimbabwe border posts yesterday despite threats by several groups, including the International Cross border Traders Association (ICTA), to shut down all commercial activities, it has been learnt.
A Zimbabwean journalist based at Beit Bridge Border Post, the busiest between Zimbabwe and South Africa, said yesterday police were deployed to monitor the situation.
The journalist said the situation in all borders was normal.
Said the journalist: “It is business as usual on both sides of Zimbabwe and South Africa. The situation is normal.”
Road Transport Operators Association (RTOA) executive director Chrissie Flao said in a telephone interview yesterday her association had not received any complaint from its members relating to problems processing entry and exit permits at Zimbabwe’s borders.
“As of now, we have not received any complaint from any of our members operating on roads passing through Zimbabwe’s borders. But I will crosscheck with those on the road at the moment,” she said at around 5pm yesterday.
ICTA had planned a stay away where people were expected to gather at China Mall, about 16 kilometres from Beit Bridge where speeches from labour movements, political parties, corporate sector and the organisers were lined up before closing for day one.
Apart from ICTA, the other organisers included Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, Africa Diaspora Workers Network, Zimbabwe
in clinical services Michael Masika said elimination means reducing the trachoma cases to anywhere below five percent so that it is not considered a public health problem.
Masika said this during Nkhotakota full council meeting organised to alert the council on the final drug distribution phase which will be administered from August 22 this year.
He said Nkhotakota was one of the districts in the country which recorded high cases of trachoma at 12 percent which necessitated the drug distribution exercise in the area for three consecutive years to eliminate the Communist Group and Tajamuka, Zimbabwe’s local pressure group.
The shut-down was supposed to be a way of demanding from the government of Zimbabwe abolishment of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 which bans imports into that country.
Zimbabwe is a critical territory to Malawi as it is a transit space for imports and exports by road transport to and from South Africa.
