Border hours extended only for Easter holidays

These are Ngwenya Border Post, Mahamba Border Post, Matsamo Border Post, Mananga Border Post.

Acting Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Home Affairs Anthony Masilela said this extension was always made during this time because of the increase in cross-country travellers.

On Thursday, Ngwenya Border Post will operate for 24 hours, on Friday it will close at midnight and on Saturday up until Monday, it will operate from 7am to 10pm.

Mahamba will close at midnight on Thursday and will operate from 6am to 10pm on Friday. It will then open an hour earlier, at 6am, until Easter Monday.

From Thursday to Monday, Matsamo will operate from 7am to 10pm and Mananga from 7am to 8pm.

Notable, however, is that the permanent extension of border hours has been stalled. As of April 1, 2012 Ngwenya Border Post was supposed to begin operating until midnight. The delay is supposedly because the South African counterparts of the Ministry of Home Affairs have not yet confirmed anything with Swaziland.

"During our talks with our South African counterparts, we made a request that other border posts, besides Ngwenya, receive an extension. Because issues of border posts involve two countries, those countries have to meet and agree on what is to be done.

"We had concluded everything on our end and are waiting for our counterparts for confirmation," Masilela said.

When speaking on national radio yesterday morning, the acting PS said it could be speculated that the delay was caused by the fact that Ngwenya Border Post was one of South Africa’s smaller ones and as such, was not a great priority. He confirmed that they were not sitting idly but had written to South Africa through the Ministry of Foreign affairs in order to solve the issue of the delay as soon as possible.

　

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