Zvamaida Murwira — Holders of Zimbabwean and SADC e-passports will soon be able to walk into Zimbabwe through a scanner on an electronic gate without queuing or the involvement of an immigration official, as part of measures to remove bottlenecks, delays and enhance promotion of ease of doing business, legislators have heard.
Immigration principal officer Mr Oscar Chitsa said the Immigration Department was working on a border management system that would see those holding Zimbabwean and Sadc e-passports served swiftly at e-gates where they will have their travel documents scanned electronically without going through the rigours of long queues associated with ports of entry experienced at places such as the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport and the Beitbridge Border Post, especially during public holidays.
Mr Chitsa was giving oral evidence before Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce, who wanted to know what the Border Efficiency Management Committee was doing to address the ease of business environment at ports of entry.
The committee chaired by Buhera South MP, Cde Ngoni Mudekunye, was concerned over delays by both cargo and passengers at some points of entry and exit.
"We are working on a new border management system, which we will be launching this year and will provide efficiency at points of entry," he said.
"We will introduce e-gates. I can confirm Harare will have a minimum of four of these. These will cater for our nationals and those from Sadc with e-passports.
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"It means the immigration counters we currently have will now serve foreigners, from outside Sadc and those without e passports.
"Those holding new passports will no longer need to go through the immigration officials. That will bring efficiency at our borders."
The roll out will start with busy entry points such as Harare, Bulawayo, Victoria Falls, Beitbridge and Chirundu.
Mr Chitsa said they had also introduced electronic visa application, e-permits and have digitised records and information systems to minimise delays.
"We have a visa system in which everyone coming to Zimbabwe requiring visas will apply while still at their home country in order to avoid bottlenecks at the point of entry.
"The e-visas will see our visitors apply for visas online while in their home country prior to travelling. The system is already functioning.
"You will also realise that our system has a lot of paperwork that was also causing delays. To deal with that we will introduce online forms to get away with the paper-based system.
