Johannesburg - The Zimbabwean community in South Africa has expressed relief at the extension of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP), which was due to expire at the end of June.
The scrapping of this permit would have led to the massive deportation of Zimbabweans who have been living in South Africa for years.
They had been advised to move to mainstream visas. It was anticipated that the majority of the 182 000 ZEP holders would not be eligible for the mainstream visas, which include the tourist, 90-day visiting, business, work, medical, study, relatives, exchange, and retired persons visas.
In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said there had been an influx of Zimbabweans applying for waivers. This and other factors led to the extension of the ZEP for another six months.
There was a court case in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, on the legality of the government’s decision to discontinue the ZEP. The Star understands that judgment in the case has been reserved.
The Zimbabwean community said in a statement: “The ZimCommunitySA welcomes this extension and understands that this period must be hastily used by our community to migrate to mainstream work permits. We are happy that the minister considered input made via the African Diaspora Forum.”
The leaders of the Zimbabwean community in South Africa encouraged those who had not applied for waivers to do so.
“We also would like to emphasise the urgency of making applications... especially those of low skill who cannot manage to migrate to mainstream permits without having certain requirements waived. We remind them that the waiver letter is not a permit,” it said.
The Zimbabwean community also raised concerns about the application processes and turnaround times.
“We have also raised issues of poor website response rates and timeouts by VFS (Visa Facilitation Services Global), the issue of booking-slot unavailability as well as the additional premium costs that inhibit the ease of applications by our community,” they said.
ADF spokesperson Ngqalabutho Mabhena said the exemptions, as we would know, were introduced in 2010 to respond to a special need that had arisen.
“The holders of ZEPs have been part of the economy for over 13 years. The continuation of exemption permits allows holders to remain legal in the country while they work, study and conduct business,” Mabhena said.
The Star