PRETORIA - The South African government has over the past two months, deported over 60 Zimbabweans for trying to re-apply for South African identity documents. The deported migrants are part of the over 5 000 Zimbabweans who had their fraudulently-acquired passports seized by South African authorities at Beitbridge, in an on-going operation launched in December last year to rid the Home Affairs Department of corruption. Deputy Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, confirmed to The Zimbabwean late last week that there had been some arrests, but would not reveal more, saying that he did not have the exact figures off-hand.
The police and the courts are dealing with such matters and it will take me some time to have ready statistics of what has really happened. What I can tell right now is that arrests have been made and will continue, not only of the bearers of those documents, but also officials from our front offices as well. Already, we have had more than 230 officials from our Home Affairs officers arrested on the same issue of corruption, he said
A source from the Home Affairs department put the figure of Zimbabweans arrested for trying to re-apply for their seized documents at over 150 since March. They were all charged with fraud and fined R3 000 each, while those who could not raise the money briefly detained at Lindela (repatriation centre) before they were deported, said the source.
More arrests are still being made because the Zimbabweans are still coming forward to try and re-claim their seized documents, but we can easily tell that they are not South Africans because of the loopholes in their stories.
Most Zimbabweans, especially those who have lived in the neighbouring country for more than five years, obtained South African documents fraudulently by either misrepresenting facts with the assistance of some locals, or paying officials at the Home Affairs offices. When the documents are seized, they are immediately cancelled and their bearers ordered to make fresh applications in Pretoria, where they should produce their birth cards, birth or death certificates of both of their parents, a letter from their local chief and an affidavit signed by the police to prove that they are South Africans.
The Home Affairs source said that the re-applying Zimbabweans had some of these documents, but were immediately arrested because they had also fraudulently-obtained them. The smaller MDC formation, led by Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, is still trying to get a blanket amnesty for the affected Zimbabweans. However South African authorities have only agreed conditional amnesty for a select group such as those who have married locals, have legally-registered businesses that comply with the countrys labour laws and those who have South African-born children who are properly registered in the country.
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