The Zimbabwean government is desperately trying to convince neighbours Botswana and Zambia to include it again in the multimillion-dollar bridge project across the Zambezi River in Kazungula.
Exclusion would mean significant losses in revenue for Zimbabwe, as traffic using the new bridge will bypass the country.
Currently, commuters between Botswana and Zambia use a ferry bridge across the 400m-wide Zambezi River, where trucks, goods and people are loaded into the 70-ton ferry and shipped across.
To reduce traffic congestion and enhance regional co-operation and trade, Botswana and Zambia started construction of a $230m bridge to replace the ferry bridge and open a north-south transport corridor.
Zimbabwe was isolated from its two neighbours under former president Robert Mugabe as relations, especially with Botswana, were frosty over the specific boundary and site of the bridge.
Botswana and Zambia went ahead with construction without Zimbabwe and roped in Namibia as the C-curved bridge stretches across Namibian waters in the middle, thereby avoiding Zimbabwe.
Eager to re-engage, President Emmerson Mnangagwa last year approached President Edgar Lungu from Zambia and then Botswana president Ian Khama to plead for inclusion in the project for the sake of intra-regional trade.
Transport & infrastructural development minister Joel Matiza recently visited the site of the bridge and Kazungula border post, at the confluence of the Zambezi and Chobe rivers, where four countries - Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia - meet.
Zambia and Botswana have already done the bulk of the preliminary work.
The African Development Bank and Japanese International Co-operation Agency are partly funding the project through loans to both Zambia and Botswana.
The one-stop border bridge will reduce congestion and time spent by haulage traffic at the border.
It is also set to stimulate trade.
"Zimbabwe was left out during the previous administration and Botswana and Zambia went ahead.
"As a country we are set to lose out if we are not integrated into the project because traffic will just go past us," said Matiza. "President Mnangagwa met his counterparts and agreed to come together, and as a transport minister I will be following up on those policies as we build on the one-stop border concept."
The three countries are signatories to the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier and UniVisa projects which call for co-operation.
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