Zimonline I Tobias Manyuchi I SA to issue permits to Zim immigrants
South Africa will in about two week’s time begin issuing permits to Zimbabwean immigrants living in the country, it was announced on Friday.
Pretoria last week said it would in December resume deporting undocumented Zimbabweans, ending an 18-month moratorium on deportations of illegal immigrants from its struggling northern neighbour.
But Pretoria said Zimbabweans already working, engaged in business or studying in South Africa will be issued with relevant permits on condition they produce valid documents to show they are citizens of Zimbabwe.
Home Affairs director general Mkuseli Aplenis said the documentation process will begin on September 20, adding that Zimbabweans who fraudulently acquired South African permits should surrender these and will not be prosecuted.
"The permits will be issued through all forty-six (46) regional Home Affairs offices in all the nine provinces in the country," Aplenis said. " Two hundred and thirteen (213) Home Affairs officials both at headquarters and provinces have been deployed to facilitate this process.”
Both Harare and Pretoria officials have said they will cooperate to ensure that all deserving Zimbabweans have necessary documents to allow them to stay in South Africa.
But civil society organisations have criticised the move to resume deportations saying it will spark a witch-hunt against Zimbabweans by state immigration officials and that it could also fuel xenophobia against foreigners.
South Africa, which has Africa’s most prosperous economy, is home to millions of foreign nationals, many of them living illegally and seeking better opportunities from failed economies like Zimbabwe.
There no exact figures of how many Zimbabwean live in South Africa but estimates put the figure at anything above two million or above a sixth of Zimbabwe’s total population of 12 million people.
Locals often complain that the immigrants steal their jobs or lower working standards by readily accepting below market wages, while also overloading government social services.
An outbreak of xenophobic violence in 2008 left at least 62 foreigners dead and thousands of others displaced, leaving foreign investors unsettled and South Africa’s image as one of the more tolerant countries in the world shattered.
Similar xenophobic attacks broke out soon after the end of the FIFA World Cup ended last July but security forces were this time round quick to move in to quash the violence and protect foreigners. – ZimOnline.