The MDC-T South Africa Province was, as always, part of the forum and among other pertinent issues that MDC-T pursued, was the issue of deportation, passport issuance and the appeals process.
The Zimbabwe Consulate presented its statistics as follows (as at 30 June 2011): Applications for passports
: 77,500 Applications sent directly to Zim by applicants : 5,239
Applications handled by the Consulate : 72,261
Passports received so far : 62,730
Passports distributed thus far : 57,500
Passports still awaited : 9,531
Mr. Magwenzi was very confident that they will comfortably meet the deadline, but encouraged all those that have received SMSes to come through to the Consulate, which is now situated at 13A Boeing Rd West, in Bedfordview, to collect their documents as a matter of urgency to avoid missing the deadline of 31 July 2011 set by SA Home Affairs.
He stressed that on their side as the Consulate, they have no deadline to issuing passports although if one has to beat the DHA deadline and they have not applied for a passport, they will have to appear before the Consulate and fill in all relevant forms and have all required documents checked after which the forms will be given back to the applicant to send them to Zimbabwe for someone to hand them to the External section of the passport center in Harare.
The administration to have all the forms ready to go to Zimbabwe costs R250.00, while in Zimbabwe, for US$50 it will take one to two months to get the passport, for US$250.00 it will take seven days and for US$350 it will take three days. To send the forms through the Consulate will be longer as they only send their bag once a month.
Those who need birth certificates will have to send someone who is in Zimbabwe with a similar surname to theirs to go and get the birth certificate for them. They will then have to find means to send it to them in SA to enable them to apply for a passport. Unfortunately, for hose needing IDs, they have to apply in person in Zimbabwe.
The Consulate can issue travelers with an Emergency Travel Documents (ETDs), but it will only work one way to Zimbabwe as it is not machine readable, with the hope that when they come back, they will be using their newly acquired passport, which is machine readable.
On the side of the SA Home Affairs, the statistics were presented as follows:
Total number of applications for permits : 275,762
Total Amnesty Applications : 6,243
Total adjudicated so far : 263,141
Still to be adjudicated : 12,621
Permits issued so far (Includes Amnesty) : 133,331
Permits still to be issued : 142,431
Total rejections will be known at the end of the process. The previous 10,000 rejections that had been reported were all sent back for review. Mr. Mamabolo dedicated his time to answering questions from the stakeholders.
There was a concern about the appeals process of those rejected to which the house was told that all rejections will be open for re-consideration. There will be no deportation without a proper appeal and the completion of this process includes accepting and responding to all appeals.
On the issue of registering children, no new applications will be taken but will deal with those that are already in the system. There could be a provision to look into those whose parents have acquired permits.
On the important and hot topic about deportation, where there was note that the famous "Gumbagumbas" which had been out of sight for some time, since the start of this documentation project, had been seen being dusted off supposedly in preparation for the 1st August 2011 Lindela patrols! No punches were pulled on those that did not bother to take up this opportunity. Those Zimbabweans found with no documents will be deported just like any other nationals at the moment and those found with fraudulent SA documents will face up to the law!
There was note of corrupt activities within some scrupulous undisciplined police officials who were alleged to solicit bribes and unclear fines of loitering when people were being picked up for papers.
The DHA made the first commitment of five, to follow this up and report back. However, affected individuals were requested to open cases on such incidents so that there are records.
Those that took up amnesty and had assets with banks, drivers'
licenses, education certificates etc, once on permit, all their things should follow them to the permit as per the agreements reached with the concerned institutions. However, there is a process to complete with the banks as soon as the amnesty has been validated and confirmed. This will avoid any mishaps.
All those that applied for amnesty are advised to go the nearest DHA office and fill in a "Confirmation of Amnesty" form in triplicate. One copy will remain with the department, one will go the stakeholder representative of their organization and they will keep one copy. This form is only for those that applied for amnesty. Anyone who fills it in when they did not apply will be charged with fraud!
The second commitment from the DHA was on investigating and clearing the stampedes in the major offices especially Harrison Street. There was consensus that there is no reason why there should be a stampede for people coming for fingerprints or to collect permits. Something seems amiss somewhere!
The third commitment that was made by DHA was to meet with the Zimbabwe Consulate to look at the issue of those that registered at Beulla Park while in the queue but were not given any receipts. The names are with SA Home Affairs submitted through the Deputy Director General Mr. Jackie Mckay. A report on theses will be made to all stakeholders.
The fourth commitment was to, again in the meeting with the Zimbabwe Consulate, see if there could be a way for those travelling for additional documents in Zimbabwe to be able to come back into South Africa as boarders are controlled by the DHA.
The fifth and last commitment was to grant the stakeholders a post project assessment meeting with the Department and the Consulate to review the total project.
Those that have lost their cellphone number either due to RICA or other means will need to visit the office where they applied to update their contact information as SMSes are sent only once and they may already have missed their SMS update. While there, they will have a chance to check on that. There was a strong message to those that have received SMSes to please respond urgently to assist the project.
Students who changed their institution at the beginning of the year should not be affected. They will be assisted.
All those wishing to contact the Department directly and not through their stakeholder organization can do so via email to: zimbabwe.enquiries@dha.gov .
Post published in: Politics