igure of the total backlog, but insiders told CAJ News on Tuesday that the backlog figure hovers above 300 000.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Department said it was clearing a backlog of applications that have been accumulating between 1998 and 2005.
The exercise, which is already underway, ends on the 31st of October this year.
It serves applicants with a section 22 permit as well as those whose status have not yet been finalized.
“The refugee backlog clearing project is part of the Department of Home Affairs’ humanitarian exercise in compliance with the Refugees Act of 1998,’ said the Department.
The usually bungling Department is faced with hundreds of thousands of asylum applications that have been accumulating over the years.
The bulk of these asylum seekers are from past and present economically and troubled African states such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and lately, Zimbabwe, which is facing its worst socio-economic crisis since independence 27 years ago.
Zimbabwean asylum seekers as well other nationals have meanwhile hailed the initiative which they said would retain their confidence in the Department of Home Affairs as well as ease congestion at refugee centres.
“It is encouraging that at last, the department is doing something to ease the plight of asylum seekers. It is a plausible move. However the move should also assist asylum seekers who applied after 2005,” said Wilson Ncube, a Zimbabwean asylum seeker who applied for refugee status in 2000 at the height of the pre-election violence that rocked Zimbabwe then.
Asylum seekers have over the years lambasted the South African government saying it was frustrating their efforts of getting refugee status by taking too long to process their applications.
South Africa’s favourable human rights record and economic potential has made it a safe haven for political and economic refugees from around the world-CAJ News.