Migrant resource centre launched in Bulawayo

Andile Tshuma, Sunday News Reporter
THE Government, through the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare has established a migrant resource centre in Bulawayo which will be used to help profile the over 170 000 Zimbabweans anticipated to return from South Africa next month following the expiry of their exemption permits.

Speaking to Sunday News during a tour of the facility which will open its doors to the public on 30 May, Mr Wellington Mkhwananzi, an employment officer in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare said the Government had seen the need to profile all returning residents in the country in order to identify their skills and connect them with relevant departments for possible job placements.

He said the Government was also looking to address the skills drain suffered by the country by tapping into the anticipated arrivals and ensuring that those with critical and special skills were incorporated into various Government departments as well as into the private sector.

“This facility not only serves those who are intending to migrate, but it also serves those who are returning to Zimbabwe. We, as His Excellency has already said, are ready and geared to receive our brothers and sisters coming back from South Africa. This facility will assist our brothers and sisters we are anticipating to be coming in June. It will help them with the psycho-social services that they need and with reintegration into the labour market, into our society and will also help those who could not get the time to get their social protection packages. Some of our brothers and sisters have properties, moneys and investments there, they have been working, they will need to recoup their pensions and benefits so this facility will be working with embassies to help them get what is due to them so that we do not have a Wenela situation,” he said.

Mr Mkhwananzi said the Government had realised that South Africa had vast industry and a lot of skilled personnel, and said a tactful mapping of the skills profile of returning Zimbabweans was important to ensure no critical skill would go unaccounted for.

“We want to tap into their skills. South Africa as one of the developed countries and a member of the BRICS, has grown so much in its economy and there are certain skills that are not here in Zimbabwe and through our National Development Strategy 1, we need such skills and we will use this facility to tap into those skills so that returning residents will contribute to the development of Zimbabwe,” said Mr Mkhwananzi.

Addressing journalists on the sidelines of the tour, Deputy Director for Labour Administration and International Relations in the Ministry, Mr Langton Ngorima, said a ministerial taskforce had recently travelled to South Africa for an initial profiling exercise on the Zimbabweans who were expected to return next month. He said the Government in partnership with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) was working on logistics for the repatriation including transport and accommodation.

“Government has come up with an inter-ministerial taskforce that prepares for the return of Zimbabweans from South Africa. Already, that team has been to South Africa to do a mapping exercise and profiling those people and also getting to understand their choices, whether they want to remain in South Africa or come home and what type of assistance they would want. We already have that data and we are already planning to use that data because we needed to understand the dynamics but we have got a number of ministries involved. When the time comes, we will offer assistance for transport and we are working with the IOM and we have a reception centre in Beitbridge which is being spruced up. We also have alternative places which can accommodate these people, including the Nssa Hotel which is currently not being used,” he said.

Mr Ngorima said the Government was working on a tailor-made integration process and making efforts to meet the individual needs of every returning resident.

“We will engage them so that we tailor-make an integration process for them and we will also utilise our employment services and our migrant resource services so that we do matching so that those that have skills needed, we certainly avail information of the opportunities. Those that have skills and are not absorbed by our labour market, we use our thrust in employment services, of employment creation, to support them to start sustainable livelihood and employment creation projects,” he said.

He added that there were sectors that were affected by that migration which resulted in massive skills drain.

“We will definitely welcome them back and help them to get absorbed into the country’s labour market,” he said.

Mr Ngorima also hinted that they will go out of their way to ensure that the families who were receiving them were engaged to ensure that those who were not in good relations were assisted to reconcile.