Cops take food at Zim border
2009-04-14 09:06
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Johannesburg - A local couple who visited family in Zimbabwe over the weekend, claim that South African police officers confiscated their food - and that of fellow travellers - at Beit Bridge border post.
Paulus Ncube, 60, and his wife, Maria Mbete, 54, of Ruimsig on the West Rand, said they had driven to Saint Joseph in Zimbabwe on Wednesday to visit Ncube's family.
"We didn't struggle going into the country and took food for some of our family. The problem arose when we came back to South Africa on Sunday," said Mbete on Monday.
According to Ncube they had brought flour, sugar cane and peanuts back from Zimbabwe.
"At the border post there were many men in police uniforms," he said. "They came to the cars and took everyone's food. They left our money and everything else, but the bags of food that they took, were left standing around in heaps."
Ncube said one of the police officers then started eating some of the food that they had taken.
Intimidated
"We were too scared to say anything, because they had taken our registration numbers and also asked for our cellphone numbers."
Gerbie Strydom, 63, the couple's employer, contacted Beeld on Monday when they told him about the incident.
"I am very upset, because they do it to vulnerable people like them," said Strydom.
"Then they write down their registration numbers and telephone numbers to intimidate them, and they get away with it."
National police spokesperson Captain Dennis Adriao said on Monday he was not aware of the incidents, but pointed out that police officials usually worked in support of officials of the Department of Agriculture, who sometimes confiscated certain items.
"Sometimes items have to be confiscated for security reasons. Recently, no leather products were allowed from Mozambique due to foot-and-mouth disease. These incidents could be related to cholera."
Adriao said he would investigate.
- Beeld