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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
SOUTH Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has appointed a five-member committee to review permits and visa issues to most immigrants who have been in that country since 2004.
He said the move was meant to weed out rent-seeking activities in the Department of Home Affairs considering that in some cases permits or visas were being corruptly issued to the wrong people.
South Africa is home to an estimated five million foreigners including Zimbabweans and others from across the globe.
At least 300 000 Zimbabweans are in the neighbouring country under the three-year Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) which will expire at the end of December this year.
Minister Motsoaledi told journalists in Pretoria on Wednesday that the committee will review the Permanent Residence Permits (PRP), which are just a step away from citizenship, corporate visa, especially in the mining sector, Business visa, (Professional) Critical skills visa, and Retired persons’ visa, Citizenship by naturalization and Study visa.
“We chose 2004 as the cut-off date because that is the year the Immigration Act, Act number 13 of 2002, came into operation,” he said.
The Minister said the need to review the permits was necessitated by the trend emerging from the outcomes of cases involving prominent people investigated by the Department’s Counter Corruption Unit, which investigates wrongdoing by departmental officials.
He said they had established that 66 percent, or nearly two out of every three reported cases, involved permitting and that the cases were being reported by different whistle-blowers using different avenues to reach the CCU.
Online Reporter