SA through its home affairs department has abolished the use of border passes which were being used by Beitbridge residents to travel to Musina as part of their new immigration regulations, the Zimbabwean Herald reported on Tuesday.

The use of the temporary travel document was scrapped with immediate effect from November 15 this year, the report said. The pass was introduced following a mutual agreement between the SA and Zimbabwean governments to facilitate movement of people who live within a radius of 20 km from the border, the Herald said.

However, new regulations have been made, following a directive from home affairs in SA. "The document issued in lieu of a passport by the Zimbabwean authorities should not be recognised as a travel document ... It does not contain information and characteristics as prescribed in regulations of the Immigration Act, therefore holders of such a document should not be permitted entry to the Republic," the SA home affairs' circular said.

Beitbridge principal immigration officer in-charge Dennis Tirivanhu Chitsaka confirmed the development saying they had since informed their superiors of the new regulations, the Herald said. Chief executive for Beitbridge Rural District Council Albert Mbedzi told the Herald he was concerned over the new development as the scrapping of the border passes would impact negatively on the town's twinning agreement with Musina municipality in South Africa.

"Definitely this would have an impact on our twinning agreement with authorities at Musina Municipality considering that most of our people in this business have no passports and had been relying on this document," he told the newspaper.

The two local authorities signed a memorandum of understanding in 2005. The scrapping of border passes comes barely a month after the two countries under the Joint Commission on Defence and Security discussed the abolition of visas for Zimbabweans travelling to South Africa.

Zimbabwean immigration officials gave their SA counterparts proposals to relax stringent visa requirements as part of measures to eventually abolish the visa to South Africa, the Herald said.