Home Affairs in no-show as stakeholders criticise Zim immigrants decision

However, human rights and civil society groups passionately argued that it would be a mammoth task for the Home Affairs Ministry to document each and every Zimbabwean in the country, citing the department’s failure to properly document its own citizens seeking ID books.

“I doubt very much if Home Affairs could manage to document each and every Zimbabwean living in the country, said Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman, Sibanengi Dube.

“It would be mission impossible for them to process all the applications from Zimbabweans when they are having trouble producing documents for South Africans. In some instances we have seen men being issued with new ID books pronouncing them as women, while some women are erroneously said to be married to non-existent men or are pronounced dead when they are still alive,” added Dube.

He said the latest development would fan xenophobia, court police harassment of Zimbabweans, promote human trafficking and make life generally difficult for Zimbabwean immigrants.

Methodist Central Church Minister, Bishop Paul Verryn, who also represented the Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum at the conference, described the move to withdraw special dispensation on 31st December as “ill-timed”.

“This decision is being taken in the middle of a crippling government strike while on the other hand next year the country (Zimbabwe) is (ostensibly) holding government elections. This opens a mindset among local citizens to say Zimbabweans should get out of the country. This creates xenophobia,” said Verryn.

He said South Africa had just emerged from violent xenophobic attacks against mainly Zimbabweans, yet the government was cancelling the special dispensation without a clear explanation.

The situation would be very desperate for the most vulnerable as well as raising tension, Verryn said.

Zimbabwe Exiles Forum executive director, Gabriel Shumba, said the announcement had taken Zimbabweans back to square one.

“This whole process is actually exposing Zimbabweans to new challenges. The (Zimbabwean) embassy itself is being run by Mugabe’s Zanu PF party yet you want political victims to report to the same regime which is responsible for their plight; this is impossible, said Shumba.

“We are only appealing to the SA government to allow the current Global Political Agreement to be fully implemented and pave way for a new constitution so as to allow free and fair elections to take place. After the elections, Zimbabweans will go back home to a conducive atmosphere,” said Shumba.

Although the figure in not certain, South Africa is thought to be home to about 4 million Zimbabwean immigrants.