One things that is very clear is that the situation at Beitbridge has been caused by the very bad and unreasonable attitude of the Zimbabwe government or whoever is acting its behalf. It could have been avoided completely if the actors in the Zimbabwe government like minister Mike Bimha had been professional and reasonable.
The world over travellers are allowed to carry goods for personal use through borders. That is why borders have got a traveller section and a commercial section.
The simple reason for that is not to inconvenience travellers. Travellers do not need to know the details of statutory instruments, tariff codes, trade agreements and other legal jargon. That is why travellers are not required to make use of clearing agents.
Yet we have been having Zimbabwean officials threatening to impound busses because their passengers should not be carrying goods belonging to this or that tariff code. Really?!!
Despite all the noise about banning certain goods, there is nowhere I have seen a clear and concise list of the goods that are banned or allowed. Not a single newspaper advert listing the products banned, not a single website or even a flyer.
How then, are people expected to know what is banned and what is allowed? When they arrive at the border? Kana ndimiwo, is that reasonable?
I am not a lawyer, but I know that one of the fundamental tenets of law is 'the viewpoint of the reasonable person". Surely it cannot be reasonable to expect someone who wants to buy a few things off a supermarket shelf with the change from the bus-ticket at Park Station to know what is listed on a top secret list of banned goods at Beitbridge.
Moreover as I have always stressed, it is not Mai Chipo with her two cartons of cooking oil from Musina who is destroying the economy. It is people who consider themselves above and not subject to the laws that they themselves make.
Believe me even with this ban in place, a minister several truckloads of the very same goods that the minister decided to ban, will be allowed through the border without even being searched. I have travelled through Beitbridge so many times, and the issue of trucks of the bigwigs is well, well known. They are not searched.
They are not stopped at the umpteen roadblocks inside Zimbabwe as well. Any official who dares do their job properly and inspect such a truck, will get a single threatening phone-call, and they will never do it again. Otherwise they will be indirectly 'disciplined' for doing their job.
Those are the people killing the economy.
I also wonder whether the government officials involved ever properly do their work when come up with some these regulations. Otherwise they would know that Zimbabwe has signed various trade agreements that they need to adhere. You cannot just ban goods from your trade partners ignoring agreements that you have signed. Last time I checked, Zimbabwe was a member of at least SADC and COMESA.
This kind of bumbling happened at the time Zimbabwe introduced road tolling as well. Officials forgot that they were part of agreements by which they tolled trucks by selling route based coupons at the border. Now all foreign trucks do not pay at toll gates because they would have already paid for using that route at the border. Zimbabwe had to back track on that.
Now it looks like they have forgotten that they are part of SADC and COMESA. If they wish to withdraw from those agreements they are very free to do that. But they should do what the British are being asked to do over Brexit - send the proper notifications.
Once you are out the other party does not have to honour the agreement as well. Like the British are finding out, what was a win-win situation may become a lose-lose one. They lose, you lose too.
Given the state of Zimbabwe's economy it much more likely to suffer from not adhering to past agreements than the countries surrounding it.
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