They were doing a dry run for the 2010 World Cup at the Komatipoort border post with Mozambique a few weeks back. Well, actually, it was just a normal working day, but with the World Cup only about 900 days away, it is probably time to start thinking of every day as a dry run.
The experience was not good. It was December 16; tourists were flocking to Mozambique’s splendid coastal resorts and Mozambicans were returning home through one of the country’s busiest international borders.
I knew we were travelling on a busy day, but had the previous day heard some fellow breezily running through the impressive set of measures that had been put in place at the Lesotho borders. The private sector had been brought in, even extra toilets had been provided. I foolishly imagined that Komatipoort might, too, have put special measures in place.
We hadn’t even gotten near the border post when all cars came to a halt while police checked engine numbers on selected vehicles. This took half an hour. Then we waited for another half an hour in a second queue of cars before being allowed into the passport control area. Inside, a queue snaked back on itself twice in the airless room, while no more than two officials processed applications.
There appeared to be no shortage of officials sauntering around. One serviced a one-person deep queue of people wanting to enter the country. It took another half an hour of shuffling through the crowd-control cattle pens to reach the two officials who stamped our passports.
Mozambique was a little more organised, with four officials to process applications. Getting stamped took another half an hour, the process taking long enough for relationships to form. The curvaceous woman in front of me held up a piece of paper with numbers scribbled on it. “I want to give you my phone number,” she said. They’re very friendly people, the Mozambicans.
By professionalising the issuing of car licences and dropping visa requirements, Mozambique has sped up border procedures — but the experience is still an unhappy one. A generous number of portable toilets was provided, but what was really needed was people to stamp passports.
“It’s that [expletive] Buthelezi,” one of our party blurted, complaining that the department of home affairs was a mess because, for too long, it was controlled by a minister more keen on pursuing political advantage than setting up a service that meets the needs of the citizens of the country.
In all fairness, getting my passport renewed recently was a breeze. There were no queues and the turnaround time was quick. This was a good thing, as news reports were saying at more or less the same time that home affairs had run out of passports. Happily, my passport only has to be renewed again in 2016.
We analysed our experience at Komatipoort in soccer terms, deciding that if we had to score South Africa versus Mozambique it would have been two goals to one in favour of the Mozambicans. But that leaves out South Africa’s own goal.
Two hot, frustrating hours after arriving at the border, there was just one official left between us and our holiday.
He checked the papers and found the document allowing our car out of the country had not been stamped. We drove back to passport control and parked. I had to walk back through the international border to get this blasted piece of paper stamped.
We stopped at a pub on the other side of the border to calm our frayed nerves.
“How long did it take you,” the barman asked. “Two hours.”
“You’re lucky,” he said, “this morning it was taking six.”