South Africa: Interaction With Media by Home Affairs Director-Genreral Mkuseli Apleni Regarding Documentation of Zimbabweans (AllAfrica.com)

Let me begin by reiterating government’s commitment to adjudicating applications from Zimbabweans who wish to regularise their stay in South Africa as soon as possible. As at the end of business on Friday 31 December 2010, the closing date on which applications from undocumented Zimbabwean nationals were accepted, 275762 applications were received. To date, a total of 42779 applications have been finalised and approved, with 10166 awaiting review.  A total of 222 817 applications are awaiting adjudication.  Amnesty has been granted to 6243 Zimbabwean nationals.  And a total of 49 255 Zimbabwean nationals have surrendered their asylum status in favour of obtaining valid work and business permits. These figures attest to our conviction that the majority of Zimbabwean nationals in South Africa want to comply with our immigration regulations with a view to living productive lives without fear of deportation.

 

Accordingly, on behalf of Minister Dlamini Zuma, we express our appreciation to the thousands of Zimbabweans who applied to have their stay in South Africa regularised.  The support of the Zimbabwean stakeholder groups in the process was also invaluable. As a Department, we are committed to finalising the processing of each of these applications as soon as possible.  In some instances we are still awaiting the passports and other paperwork required to finalise some of these applications.  You will be aware that in the last weeks, we waived the requirement for fingerprints to accompany the applications.  We will therefore be calling in applicants to have their fingerprints taken so that their police clearances can be received.  There are still therefore various processes that must be completed until we can close the file on each application.

 

Our officials and senior managers are continuing to prioritise the finalisation of applications.  Zimbabwean nationals will be notified of the status of their applications through sms notification.  While we appreciate your sense of uncertainty, we appeal to you to be patient.  We will not prolong your uncertainty for any longer than is necessary. We also reiterate that we will not be deporting any undocumented Zimbabwean nationals until we have completed the processing of all applications.

Before I conclude, we take this opportunity to congratulate all those who have successfully concluded their matric examinations.  We reiterate our readiness to ensure that all of you who have not yet received their ID documents are assisted expeditiously through our 24-hour call centre.  The Minister, being cognisant of the importance of ID documents to matriculants, especially as they enter the job market or pursue further education opportunities, established this centre in October 2010.

All matriculants who are still awaiting receipt of their IDs are therefore urged to call the call centre at the following numbers:

0800 601190             0800 204476             071 123 6353            072 616 8819

071 125 5631            071 227 8438            072 381 0836            072 435 8569

079 511 8810            079 075 4326

 

We also, at the beginning of the 2011 school year, encourage all those in the matric class of 2011 to apply for their IDs as soon as possible to avoid delays closer to the time of your examinations.

 

 

 

Colleagues, we are on record as saying that this number of 1.5 – 2 million illegal Zimbabwean nationals in South Africa is not our number.  We have been saying, throughout this process, that we do not know where this number comes from.  It is not a scientific number.  We do not know how this figure is arrived at because illegal Zimbabweans have not been entering the country through official ports of entry.  So, when people talked of this number we challenged them to ask for the proof.  We have until today not received this documented proof from any quarter.

 

We are saying that the majority of Zimbabweans have complied with our immigration regulations because firstly we said, you must have a passport and then the number of people who have applied with the Zimbabwean authorities is approximately 46000 of which 10000 have been issued with passports.  We said we should allow this group to apply to be documented by producing the receipt of their passport application.  We have therefore covered this group.

Secondly, we were informed that there are people who do not have passports but only IDs or birth certificates.  We then asked them to come forward and apply to be documented.  So that group has been covered.

 

Thirdly, we were told that there is a group without any of these documents and we said, come forward and apply. Fourthly, we said, anyone who has a list of whatever nature of people who cannot apply for any reason should bring this to our attention.  We have received this list. The question then is who are these Zimbabweans who are the remaining 750000 who cannot come forward because the system has accommodated everyone.  And by the 31st December 2010, we had dealt with everyone who came forward to apply. This is why we are saying we have covered every Zimbabwean. To date we have not received any complaint from people saying they have not applied nor have they been accommodated.  Therefore, we are confident that those Zimbabweans who took this opportunity to be documented were able to.  And we really appreciate that they took this opportunity.  This is therefore the basis of our claim that the majority of Zimbabwean nationals have taken the opportunity to be documented.

 

 

We are still engaging on this matter.  What we are now doing is to categorise the 275000 applications in terms of those who have applied for passports, those who have applied with acknowledgement of receipts for passport applications, those who have applied with birth certificates or IDs, those who have applied with nothing and those applications which do not have fingerprints. We are still working on this.  We would probably have concluded this process by the end of this week.

 

 

No one will be deported until we have concluded this process.  And you will recall that even in the numbers provided, we are now saying that the number of 10 000 which had initially been rejected or now being reviewed.  But no one is being deported yet because there is a process we need to follow. Some appeals will be reviewed at the DG’s level, some will be reviewed at the Minister’s level.  And once we have concluded all these processes, it is then that we can engage with the issue of deportations.

 

We are also on record in this matter that our interest when we began this process was not in deportation of Zimbabwean nationals but rather to have them documented.  However, if there are individuals who willingly did not take this opportunity, we will deport them. We will also be looking at the appeal process very closely because there are some people who did not meet the criteria here and there.  But we will have to look at these circumstances which may even require attention at the level of the Minister to take this decision.  The interest is not about deportation but rather documentation. The grace period is until we conclude this process.  I think it is important for me to indicate that we are conducting this process together with the Zimbabwean government.

 

Once we have concluded the analysis to which I am referring, we will convene a meeting between the Minister and her counterparts from Zimbabwe to say that out of 250 000 applicants, 40 000 require passports – when will this be finalised.  A further 50 000 do not have anything, when can we confirm their nationalities and citizenship – when will passports be received. It is our intention that this process should not go beyond the end of the financial year which is 31 March 2011.

 

 

On this issue of those who have acquired property, etc using fraudulently acquired IDs – you will also recall that we have dealt with this matter by requesting a copy of your ID – your life still needs to run therefore we did not ask for your ID.  Those people have therefore not been affected negatively. Now that we have closed this process, we will sit with the stakeholders to discuss these matters.  We have already begun discussions to inform them of what this process is about.  Now we will be going to them with the names and issues and we will discuss the way forward for each individual.  At the moment, no one’s life has been hampered because of this process.

 

 

The Department of Home Affairs belongs to the JCPS cluster and are party to the objective of: All South Africans are and feel safe.  Hence we came up with these projects.  We realised we cannot have people in our country that we do not know – who they are, what they are here to do and why?  We therefore came up with this project so that everyone is documented in our country.

 

You will remember that when we were being criticised for conducting this project so we could deport Zimbabwean nationals, we refuted these allegations saying, this is in the best interests of our country because we have to look after the citizens of South Africa.  Hence we undertook this project. We also said, we would be able to have records if this project was successful.  We know who these 275000 people are, where they live, what they do.  We also have their fingerprints.  Therefore we know who is here and for what. Then there is the question of the border line, that people would still be coming in and out of the country.  Cabinet decided that the SANDF has now been redeployed to our borders so that people could not come in and out at whim and illegally.

 

Thirdly, you will know that during the 2010 FIFA World Cup we implemented our improved Movement Control System (MCS).  We are now able to know who is coming in and how this links with the various databases including Interpol.  You know some of the cases we have had.  So the intention is really to ensure our country is secure. We are therefore very clear, if you are in South Africa and undocumented, you will be deported.  We have never denied this.  This is why we have encouraged Zimbabweans to comply with this process.

 

This is why, when Minister approached Cabinet in this regard, said we will look at extending this to other nationals in the SADC region because at the end of the day we know who is here and what they are doing.  We do not a large infinite economy in this country, we cannot open our borders to anyone who wants to come to our country.  We only need people who can add value to our country.

 

 

We have been holding meetings with Lawyers for Human Rights and they have been giving us this number.  We have been asking for their databases.  It is good to say I represent the NGO Lawyers for Human Rights but we need the documented evidence if we are to act on this matter.  I have received a list from the Lawyers for Human Rights, which accounts to about 300.  This is again proof of what we are saying, they have not provided information of 1 million undocumented Zimbabwean nationals.

 

The study to which you are referring is from a sample.  What was interesting about this study is that it does not differentiate between legal and illegal Zimbabwean nationals because there are some Zimbabweans who are in South Africa legally.  We still however maintain that if someone comes to us with a list of illegal Zimbabwean nationals amounting to 1.5-3 million, we will consider this.  We would also have looked at it before the 31st December 2010.

 

However, by 31 December 2010, we thought that everyone who needed to apply for documentation would have been given an opportunity to do so. The important question is how we are going to do this – firstly, the government of South Africa is about human rights.  This is firmly entrenched in our constitution.  We cannot treat human beings like animals so we will deal with process in a humane manner.

 

How will we go about this – we have already said we are involved in the project jointly with the Zimbabwean government.  Also, with civil society of Zimbabwe which makes up the Zimbabwean Stakeholder Forum which was established through this process.  We have been consulting with them on everything we are doing.

We are therefore saying that as an adjudicator at this level, you are not final authority.  This is why we are saying there is an appeals process which will have two legs – the Director-General and then to the political head of the Department, the Minister.  We will therefore have to look at circumstances around each application – for instance – this person’s position is like this, how do we deal with this.  We will then be able to take decisions regarding deportation with the government of Zimbabwe.  We will have to look at how people will be moved from South Africa to Zimbabwe and how they will be resettled in their country of origin.  Surely we cannot dump them just beyond the border post of South Africa.

 

Hence I was saying that the Minister’s intention is that once we have concluded the analysis to which I was referring, the Minister will meet with her Zimbabwean counterparts to discuss the outstanding documents required to finalise the process on our side as well as how to deal with those whose applications have been denied.

We have also tried to consistently make the point that this dispensation is not replacing how we deal with refugees and asylum seekers.  As you know, South Africa is a signatory to international conventions – the UN and AU - on refugees and asylum seekers.  This has not been removed.  So, if there is someone from Zimbabwe who comes to our borders seeking political asylum from persecution of whatever nature, our response will be governed by international conventions to which we are signatories.  So if people seek refuge following elections in Zimbabwe, we will deal with them accordingly. So, I really want to appeal to you to not confuse the two processes.

 

You will remember that even on our statistics, there are people who have chosen to surrender their asylum seeker status.  Again, this is a voluntary decision on their part.  People looked and said they are in South Africa because of other reasons, study or work and not asylum in the first place.  They have therefore applied for the proper permits.  So, if we need to deal with Zimbabweans in terms of refuge or asylum, we will do so.  People of Zimbabwe are not barred from entering South Africa for this purpose.

 

 

We are on record that we have offered assistance to the Zimbabwean government.  However, we did not say we are offering them a printing press.  We said we would be willing to provide any assistance that would be required to ensure this process is successful.  We would look at their requests to see what we could do.

All that has been requested thus far is office space.  We therefore made available office space in Cape Town and Pretoria so they would be able to process the documents on their side.

 

Minister is now saying that once we have concluded categorising the applications we will need to meet with the Zimbabwean government.  They have however explained to us that the system was only capable of producing 500 passports per day.  Then when we engage, we can say to the Zimbabweans that of the 275000 applications, 200000 do not have passports and at the Zimbabwean rate of production of 500 per day we will conclude this process in three years.  We will therefore engage with them that our offer of assistance still stands.

 

 

Colleagues, you must remember that we prioritised 31 December 2010 as the deadline for the receipt of applications.  We were also adjudicating some applications but in the latter days we focused on receiving applications.  When we realised the volume of documents received on 31 December 2010 we extended all resources.  We extended the contracts of those employed to assist with this process and their contracts will end at the end of February 2011.  We will be transparent in this process and will brief you on a weekly basis.

 

 

Yes, this was really a challenge despite our appeal and confirmation that employers will not face any consequences for employing illegal Zimbabwean nationals.  This is why the issue of the appeal process becomes more important – we cannot just have an adjudicator who is technical and denies the application because there is no letter confirming employment although there is a pay slip.  Therefore the adjudication at the level of DG and Minister becomes very important because they can apply their minds to the application.  Hence we are putting these processes in place.  The applicant will therefore be able to appeal.  If we identify a trend in terms of those in a particular sector not having certain documents, we may even engage with employers to assure them that they will not face any retribution. We also cannot promote abuse.  This is why we want people to be documented.  We have labour laws in South Africa and people can be abused.

DG, there have been allegations of human rights abuses at the Consulate in Zimbabwe.  How would you respond to this?

 

Yes, I did receive a call from Braam Hanekom of PASSOP in Cape Town last night informing me of this matter.  This is really unfortunate but we cannot as a South African government promote issues of abuse.  We are therefore investigating this matter to see how we can deal with this.  I will have a meeting with the Consul-General on this matter. Perhaps these offices are dealing with too high a volume of people and they are not able to cope.  These are some of the issues we have to interrogate.

As you know, even as the Department of Home Affairs, we said in the last week that we would require the assistance of the police to manage crowds.  We want to understand if this is an issue of crowd control so we can provide whatever assistance the Zimbabwean government requires.

 

 

Yes, you will remember that on the last day we announced a figure but we still had to reconcile all figures from around the country.  You will also know that for instance, for the farmers, applications were not being handed in at offices, we had to create different processes to assist them.  All these statistics are therefore coming back to head office.  This is therefore the final figure after we received all these statistics.