South Africa's permit procedures will not change as a result of the special amnesty for Zimbabwean migrants, the home affairs department said on Thursday.
“We are not changing the permitting regime... This is a dispensation to assist Zimbabwean nationals. We don't want to sit in our country with this cloud on our heads,” director general Mkuseli Apleni told reporters in Pretoria.
Apleni said the process for applying for asylum and getting work and study permits would remain unchanged even with this new bilateral agreement with Zimbabwe.
Home affairs recently announced an amnesty for Zimbabweans, who had been using fraudulent South African identity books - to enable them to get the correct papers.
Zimbabweans who have held South African ID books would be issued with permits to their valid Zimbabwean passports, some for as long as years. The process started on Monday.
Apleni said a team of South African and Zimbabwean government officials would try and ensure that the documentation of that country's nationals ran smoothly.
The newly established SA-Zimbabwe task team would conduct daily visits at the department's regional offices. They would also encourage Zimbabweans to get documentation.
Acknowledging some problems since the start of the documentation process on Monday, Apleni said department officials also needed to understand what the project meant.
“We need to make sure that as a department we understand exactly what this project means. We still have some challenges with our people not understanding this and that.”
Despite the teething problems, he said they gave full support to the decision to document Zimbabweans living in South Africa.
The Movement for Democratic Change complained a few weeks ago that officials “knew nothing” about the project, as some people were apparently being turned away from regional offices.
Apleni said it was not up to officials at regional offices to turn applicants away, but the headquarters' responsibility to make that decision.
“We've instructed employees that the adjudication process is done at the headquarters. No one in any office had the right to say I will not grant you this because of this... their role is just to collect the documents and pass them on to headquarters.”
A track-and-trace system will be implemented in each office to assess how many applicants were received per day and how many were turned back.
Apleni indicated that the number of Zimbabweans making use of the opportunity was growing by the day. Figures would be released weekly, starting from next week.
Other nationals will in future benefit from this sort of amnesty.
Apleni urged Zimbabwean nationals living in South Africa illegally to heed the call to correct their documentation, adding that other nationals would in future benefit from this sort of amnesty.
MDC secretary Ngqabutho Dube said those who had already bought houses and obtained loans from banks with their South African IDs would be assisted through the stakeholders forum.
“The forum will engage with the business community to explain amnesty to them, and request them to co-operate so people can keep their property and not have them sold,” he said.
“It's critical for the MDC to ensure that no Zimbabwean national looses his/her property during this period.” - Sapa