JOHANNESBURG - Zimbabweans in Cape Town and surrounding areas this week received a major boost when the Zimbabwean Consulate set up a makeshift base in the resort city where they can now collect their passports.Zimbabwe passport applicants based in Cape Town areas are advised not to travel to Johannesburg to collect their passports. Consulate officials are now distributing passports in Boston Centre, Bellview between 28 and 30 April 2011, the Consulate said.
Before the setting up of the makeshift centre in Cape Town, hundreds of Zimbabweans based in Cape Town and surrounding areas faced a frustrating period travelling to Johannesburg and Pretoria to collect their travel documents.
The Consulate in Cape Town was closed a couple of years ago under unclear circumsttnces leaving the Consulates in Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria to serve the millions of Zimbabweans estimated to be living in South Africa.
Its reopening is a major boost for Zimbabweans ahead of the resumption of deportations of undocumented Zimbabweans in the neighbouring country.
Last September, the South African cabinet lifted a Special Dispensation to Zimbabweans, paving way for the deportation of such undocumented nationals.
The move resulted in a rush by Zimbabweans here to apply for passports at the consulates. Officials in SA said the project to document Zimbabweans was on track and it would resume deportations in August.
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