The latest six-month extension of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) system until December 2023 has postponed the inevitable day of reckoning for hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living in South Africa. There are about 178 000 ZEP holders in SA who are at risk of deportation should they fail to qualify for an alternative visa by December this year. There are estimated 1.5-3 million Zimbabweans in SA, so the ZEP system applies to a relatively small proportion. The ZEP Holders Association (Zepha) believes Zimbabweans are being scapegoated for many of the ills plaguing SA, from crime to unemployment, and are assumed to be here illegally. Operation Dudula has been reported as barging into businesses to conduct “audits” of the number of foreign workers and selling them to locals for several thousand rands.
Several institutes of higher learning have terminated the services of Zimbabwean teachers, and some schools have refused to register the children of Zimbabweans. Hate groups have denied healthcare, with Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba caught on camera chastising a Zimbabwean patient admitted at a hospital in Bela-Bela. Advocate Simba Chitando has received multiple reports of hate groups blocking the entrance to SA hospitals to prevent Zimbabweans from accessing medical care. Borders and bribes have become a hot-button election issue, and the ANC is not alone in trying to capitalise on it. Last year Home Affairs despatched hundreds of border guards to stiffen security at Beitbridge Border Post and other borders.
A Zimbabwean businessman on a recent trip through Beitbridge tells Moneyweb he saw one of these border guards taking money and waving on a presumably illegal immigrant, perhaps carrying contraband. A Moneyweb reader incensed at the souring of relations between SA and Zimbabwe wrote: “The [SA] government should have embraced ZEP holders as their own. The contribution made by these innocent neighbours is enormous. Authorities in government are confused in a very straightforward matter. Zepha argues that ZEP holders, having spent more than a decade in SA and built families, businesses and homes here, must be granted permanent residence and that the Immigration Act makes provision for this. Fixing SA’s border problems is a critical issue, but it should not be used as a cudgel against the millions of Zimbabweans in SA, who have made this their home and made a massive contribution to the economy.
