NGWENYA BORDER – SA SIDE STAFF SURLY

Sir,

I wonder if you could find out if the South African border staff at the Ngwenya Border Control Post – on both outgoing from Swaziland and incoming from South African side are on a deliberate go slow strike?

I have had to go to South Africa about five times over the past two months, and each time have found the staff on the South African side surly, unpleasant and unhelpful, getting worse each time I go through. They in general don’t look up, and give a greeting at all; even when one greets them (which I believe is the normal thing to do).

In fact I have been given the feeling that they don’t want Swazis visiting South Africa at all; that they are doing us all a huge favour by deliberately serving us slowly, and making it so unpleasant to use the border post. This is in stark contrast to the smiling faces, happy greetings and pleasantness from the Swaziland side.

I had to go to Nelspruit on April 12 and it took about 10 minutes to get through the Swazi side, then over 45 minutes to navigate the South African side. I went through at what I consider ‘peak’ times – and came back at 5.25pm. During both the morning and late afternoon times the South African side only had two staff manning the windows (although there were a number of other people standing around in the background doing nothing but watching).

I arrived at the border from Nelspruit at 5.25pm and finally got to the Swazi side at 6.35pm – just over an hour. Then even though I had to declare items at Customs it still took only 15 minutes to complete everything on the Swazi side. I realise that they have introduced a time consuming scanning procedure but surely due to the fact that it is time consuming they should have more staff actually manning the windows and not just loitering and watching? 

There is a huge number of people going through the border - both mornings (7am to 8.30) and coming back in the evenings (4.30pm – 6.30pm). Surely during this time more staff should be employed and perhaps less staff (but certainly more than two windows) at off peak times? 

Disgruntled traveller
 
NOTE: In an effort to afford them the right to reply, this letter was emailed to the South African Commission in Mbabane. After a follow-up call they responded by saying the matter was out of their jurisdiction and afforded us with a contact email address at the South African Department of Home Affairs. The letter was then forwarded to the given email address at the Department of Home Affairs but to this day there has been no response.

Ed

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