Nearly 200,000 Zimbabweans are at risk of deportation when the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) scheme ends in December.
Lawyers representing the permit holders say they are preparing to haul banks to court to prevent them from closing the accounts of any ZEP holder.
“Sadly, we have to go to court to protect our rights,” says Advocate Simba Chitando, who is representing the ZEP Holders Association (Zepha). This is the largest fraud ever committed by an African government on the citizens of another African country, and it must be brought to an end. One of the reasons cited by the Department of Home Affairs for suspending the ZEP system is the cost of administering the system. It says it only had R15 million available for exemption permits, yet Zimbabweans have paid hundreds of millions of rands to Home Affairs to obtain these permits,” says Chitando.
“Home Affairs has been bilking Zimbabweans, most of them poor, for more than a decade.”
Also targeted for legal action is VFS Global, owned by one of the world’s largest private equity firms, US-based Blackstone.
VFS Global is responsible for processing the exemption permits on behalf of Home Affairs.
Attorneys representing Zepha have written to VFS Global asking it to account for the number of applications it processed under the ZEP system, and its predecessor, the Zimbabwe Special Dispensation Permit (ZSP).
Zepha estimates that close to half a billion rand would have been paid over by Zimbabweans applying for these permits.
“We will not hesitate to take legal action against Blackstone, in the United States, using lawyers based there,” adds Chitando.
“We intend to mobilise civil society in the US to expose the practice of never-ending expensive applications and extensions, instead of simply providing ZEP holders with permanent residence permits.”
ZEP holders have started receiving notices from FNB bank that their permits will no longer be valid after 31 December 2022, and must be replaced with a ‘mainstream’ visa after the Department of Home Affairs decided to end the ZEP system.
The notice does not explain what will happen to those FNB customers who are ZEP holders and do not qualify for a ‘mainstream’ visa, though many fear their accounts will be closed, thereby throttling their ability to continue living and working in South Africa.
The ZEP system has been in operation in various forms since 2009, allowing Zimbabweans to live, work, study and conduct business in SA. It was introduced to legitimise the status of Zimbabweans in SA, many of whom fled the political and economic chaos at home.
Last year Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced the ZEP scheme would be terminated at the end of 2021. He then extended the termination period by a year to allow an

estimated 178 000 permit holders to apply for alternative visas.
ZEP representatives in SA believe Home Affairs is responding to and fuelling xenophobia, already at dangerously high levels after massive job losses brought on by Covid lockdowns.
Motsoaledi’s decision to suspend the scheme is being challenged in three separate court cases brought by the Helen Suzman Foundation, the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit Holders Association (Zepha), and the Zimbabwe Immigration Federation.
All three are asking the courts to set aside the minister’s decision to suspend the ZEP system, pointing to the disastrous impact it will have on the region if potentially hundreds of thousands of people are forced to repatriate to a country with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. These cases are likely to be heard in October.
One of the reasons cited by Home Affairs for suspending the permit scheme is to ease unemployment in SA �` though this is refuted by the Zimbabwe Immigration Federation, which argues in its court papers that the 178 000 ZEP holders constitute just 0.3% of SA’s population of about 60 million.
There is some evidence of back-tracking by Home Affairs, after some ZEP holders received letters from the department’s director-general Livhuwani Makhode that ZEP ‘waiver applications’ are being reconsidered by the minister pending legal advice.
“It has come to our attention that the banks have been weaponised by the government to enforce the shakedown of ZEP holders, who risk their accounts being frozen if they do not apply for visas many do not qualify for, because Home Affairs has made documentation all but impossible,” says Chitando.
FNB’s response
“FNB is monitoring developments regarding the status of Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEPs) and communicates regularly to customers who may be affected. Our latest communication to customers who are ZEP holders aims to inform them about the most recent directive from the Department of Home Affairs and the options available to them.
“The term ‘mainstream visas’ in our customer communication generally refers to visas that are prescribed under the Immigration Act,” the bank states.
“We are committed to helping our customers to ensure that their bank accounts are used and managed in accordance with the relevant laws. Our customers can also contact us directly if they have any questions or need assistance with their bank accounts.”
Moneyweb reached out to VFS Global for comment, but had not received a reply by the time of publication. �` Moneyweb
www.samigration.com V.4445

I recently renewed my passport at Home Affairs in a bank branch and was very impressed with the service and quick turnaround time. The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and major banks first launched the option to do Smart ID card and passport applications via select bank branches in 2016. It has slowly grown to around 30 locations, including branches from Absa, Discovery Bank, FNB, Investec, Nedbank, and Standard Bank. My passport was set to expire in October 2024, and because many countries require that your passport be valid for six months from a travel date, a renewal was due. V.5324
Click here for full article

DA MP says this is up 20 000 from the 74 000 six months previously Department of Home Affairs visa backlog is up by 20 000 in 6 months The Democratic Alliance (DA) can reveal that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Visa backlog has increased from 74 000 in August 2023 to 92 000 as of 16 February 2024. This is an increase of just under 20 000 in about 6 months. Download the Parliamentary question and answer here. The increase goes against what the Minister told the Home Affairs Parliamentary Committee in March 2023. V.5325
Click here for full article

The European Union (EU) will limit visas for people from Ethiopia. This is because the Ethiopian government hasn`t been helping take back citizens who stay in the EU illegally. The EU Council announced this in a statement on Monday. Ethiopians won`t get visas for multiple entries anymore. Also, Ethiopians with diplomatic and service passports won`t have their visa fees waived. V.5326
Click here for full article

CRIMINAL convictions more than two decades ago came to haunt a man who was offered a job as a senior data discovery and enrichment expert, but after his prospective employer got wind of the convictions, retracted the job offer. But the Gqeberha Labour Court came to his rescue and found that the man should be given a second chance, given that his convictions occurred 20 years ago and had meanwhile been expunged. V.5327
Click here for full article

Nigeria’s economy, which ranked as Africa’s largest in 2022, is set to slip to fourth place this year and Egypt, which held the top position in 2023, is projected to fall to second behind South Africa after a series of currency devaluations, International Monetary Fund forecasts show. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook estimates Nigeria’s gross domestic product at $253 billion based on current prices this year, lagging energy-rich Algeria at $267 billion, Egypt at $348 billion and South Africa at $373 billion. V.5328
Click here for full article

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
Click here for full article

An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
Click here for full article

EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
Click here for full article

As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
Click here for full article

DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
Click here for full article