JOHANESBURG The South African government has received more than 20 000 applications for permits from Zimbabwean immigrants seeking to formalise their stay in the neighbouring country, a top official told The Zimbabwean On Sunday last week. As of Thursday evening, we had received about 24 000 applications for permits as more Zimbabweans continue to heed our call, South African home affairs director general Mkhuseli Apleni said.
We have approved about 6 000 and rejected about 247 applications, mainly because they were accompanied by fraudulent letters of employment.
He reiterated that, barring the slow processing of passports by the Zimbabwean consulate, the department would meet its December 31 deadline of receiving applications from the Zimbabweans.
South Africa has said it would in January 2011 resume deporting undocumented Zimbabweans, ending an 18-month moratorium on deportations of illegal immigrants from its struggling northern neighbour.
The moratorium on deportations was first implemented in April 2009 in an attempt to regulate the stay of Zimbabweans in South Africa, thousands of who continue to flock to their more prosperous neighbour in search for jobs and better living conditions.
Under the special dispensation, Zimbabweans could enter South Africa and work for a total of three months before renewing the temporary permits.
South Africa, which has Africas most prosperous economy, is home to millions of foreign nationals, many of them living illegally and seeking better opportunities from failed economies like northern neighbour Zimbabwe.
There no exact figures of how many Zimbabwean live in South Africa but estimates put the figure at anything above two million or above a sixth of Zimbabwes total population of 12 million people.
Locals often complain that the immigrants steal their jobs or lower working standards by readily accepting below market wages, while also overloading government social services.
An outbreak of xenophobic violence in 2008 left at least 62 foreigners dead and thousands of others displaced, leaving foreign investors unsettled and South Africas image as one of the more tolerant countries in the world shattered.
Similar xenophobic attacks broke out soon after the end of the FIFA World Cup ended last July but security forces were this time round quick to move in to quash the violence and protect foreigners.
Post published in: Zimbabwe News