When The Zimbabwean visited various Home Affairs offices recently, long queues were observed, as the Zimbabweans tried to beat the final deadline of collecting their freely-processed permits, which has been set for July 31 this year. After the deadline, Pretoria will resume the arrest and deportation of those who remain undocumented. An estimated three million Zimbabweans live in SA, but only 270 000 applied for the permits.
Home Affairs Director-general, Mkhuseli Apleni, said that the permits being dispatched were part of the 28 044 permits the department finished sorting out two weeks ago. We have said before that we are going to meet the deadline of July 31 that we set and this is part of us fulfilling that promise, said Apleni.
Everything is going well so far and we are handling all applications and dispatches with speed so that it will be back to normal when the deadline passes. I would like to urge those who have received their smses to visit our offices urgently, so that they will be served well before the deadline and save us the last-minute pressure.
However, most Zimbabweans complained that despite having received smses indicating that they should collect their permit within five days, they had been turned away at Home Affairs offices, told to collect after 10 days.
Some complained that the late dispatch of the smses had led to congestion at the Home Affairs offices, which has seen some failing to be served in the Johannesburg city centre. Market Street office has been closed, leaving the Harrison Street centre as the only dispatch point.
The five days that are written on the smses come from Pretoria, where the processing is done, but we also need to sort the permits out here and it usually takes us five more days to do that, hence the 10 days the applicants, said an official at the Harrison centre. In total, about 150 000 applications for freely-processed permits from Zimbabweans nationals are still being finalised.
Post published in: News