She did not have a passport and had to contend with a stint sleeping outside the Zimbabwean Department of Home Affairs makeshift centre in Meadowdale to acquire the all-important document.
Two months later, after losing R800 in official charges and greasing the palms of corrupst officials, the 29-year-old-mother-of-two received her travel documents from Harare.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Ndlovu’s received her passport two months earlier than the December 31 2010 deadline to acquire permits to legalise her stay here.
Her relief received a further boost after South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs texted her to come and collect her permit.
But, nine months after her passport came through, Ndlovu is back sleeping outside Home Affairs, this time the South African one.
The department is mandated to issue her with a permit to regularise her stay, but corruption and a lack of capacity has put paid to her prospects of attaining the all-important document.
“This is unfair. A few months ago, I received an SMS hat my application to practise as a domestic worker had been approved. To my surprise, I have been shoved from pillar to post. Some official even asked for between R1000 and R1 500 for the permit to be issues. Where am I supposed to get that kind of money?” she asked.
Ndlovu is not the only Zimbabwean national to have suffered. A tour of the Department of Home Affairs office in central Johannesburg met crowds of Zimbabweans sleeping in queues with the hope of attaining their permits.
Home affairs spokesperson, Ronnie Mamoepa, meanwhile expressed confidence they would meet the July 31 deadline to process permits for the more than 2 million Zimbabweans that applied for permits.
Post published in: Zimbabwe News