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Department of Home Affairs risking futures of many Zimbabwean migrants
Department has not thought about its own capacity in implementing arbitrary deadlines
DA calls on minister to map out plan to Parliament





The Democratic Alliance (DA) is concerned that the Department of Home Affairs has placed the futures of many hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans in jeopardy by putting a deadline in place which it simply does not have the resources to meet. The deadline concerns the regularisation by home affairs of those many Zimbabwean migrant workers who have, until now, been resident in our country illegally. This regularisation is due to be completed by 31 December 2010. Until now, it has been very poorly executed.

This is a hallmark of bad planning and bad administration and, because of it, not only our home affairs offices under severe strain but refugee Zimbabweans, many of whom are here escaping conditions back home, are suffering.

While we understand and support the need for an accurate population register, and the control of influx of illegal migrants, we must agree with the numerous lobby groups that the lack of proper planning and execution of the "regularisation" of Zimbabweans in South Africa is resulting in an insensitive, traumatic and chaotic experience for many of these migrants.

The aim of this process is ensuring that Zimbabweans comply with South Africa's immigration laws, and lead normal lives without the constant fear of deportation. This is worthy of support. However, the process itself is now resulting in considerable frustration, anger and distress, which has already, in Harrison Street, resulted in violence.

This is disappointing for a country that has made respecting human rights one of its national priorities. I shall be writing to the chairperson of the portfolio committee on home affairs requesting that the minister of home affairs, Dr. Nkosazane Dlamini-Zuma, appear before Parliament to map out the precise details of the department's plans to implement its own ill-thought and arbitrary deadline.

The Deputy Minister of Home Affairs visited the Home Affairs office in Harrison Street, Johannesburg yesterday after violence broke out amongst the several hundred Zimbabwean nationals in the street outside the office on Tuesday.

His spokesperson, Bayanda Mzoneli, is quoted as saying, after the visit, "...the Bloemfontein office receives fewer numbers... so perhaps the deployment of officials should match the demand of the office...So we might move officials from one office to the next. [...] A final decision would only be made after an audit had been done of all the busy and less busy home affairs offices."

Surely the deployment of resources to match demand should be a given ? Just how long will this audit take ?

Hundreds of people are being forced to arrive from 02:00 each day, sleeping on the streets in order to ensure a place in the queue, standing at the centre all day, for days on end, without being attended to. The scenario at Harrison Street is mirrored at the Cape Town office in Maitland. Men and women are forced to endure this extreme inconvenience, putting their employment in jeopardy, out of fear that they might, ultimately, be deported to a country from which they have, in most cases, justifiably fled.

The DA has already raised questions to the Minister in this regard.

There are many questions that arise. The Department has no idea of the number of Zimbabweans in the country. The official estimate is 600 000. The Centre for Development and Enterprise, in 2008, estimated the number to be close to 1 000 000.

The Minister has announced that 240 officials have been deployed to facilitate the process of "regularisation" while the Director-General has announced the number to be 213. A quick calculation based on 1 000 000 migrants and 213 officials shows that, before the deadline of 31 December, each application will have to be fully processed in 6.5 minutes.

This is clearly an impossible task. Urgent measures are required to augment the current process. The Minister needs to explain to Parliament her department's ability to meet its own deadline. Contributing members of our society are entitled to no less.