Eskom intervenes in German mom visa case

Source: IOL.com, 05/01/2016

Pretoria - The High court in Pretoria came to the rescue of a
desperate mother of three, who had been separated from her children
for nearly the entire month of December, after Home Affairs banned her
from entering the country, claiming her permit to remain here was
fraudulent.


German citizen Yvonne Twarz-Kirchhoff, with the aid of her lawyer,
turned to the court on New Year`s Eve, as she is desperate to enter
South Africa to be reunited with her family.
She said her husband Jens received a "critical skills work permit" as
he was commissioned from Dresden in Germany, where they lived, to
urgently work on Eskom`s Kusile Power Station project as a piping
supervisor.


Eskom desperately needed this power station to be commissioned as soon
as possible to contribute to the shortages experienced on the national
electricity grid.


Twarz-Kirchhoff said her husband accepted the work on condition that
she and their children were allowed to accompany him to South-Africa
for the next three years. They came to South Africa in March last year
and lived on a smallholding outside Pretoria. Twarz-Kirchhoff said she
had to leave for Germany on December 4, to attend to urgent business.
When she returned three days later, she was refused re-entry by an
immigration officer.


She was handed back to Swiss Air by Home Affairs officials and told to
go home. No reasons were given.


Meanwhile, it emerged that Home Affairs claimed that she had been in
the country illegally for several months. She was declared "an
undesirable person".


But Twarz-Kirchhoff said in a statement that Home Affairs issued a
permit for the whole family to stay in South Africa for the next few
years. This was accepted together with her husband`s work
permit.


She received a visitor`s permit, with the words "to accompany her
husband on his valid critical skills permit" written on the
permit.


As her children have remained at their Pretoria home and she was
forced to stay in Dresden, her husband could not return to work as he
had to take care of the children. The court was told that her husband
was under immense pressure, as he played a vital role in the
finalisation of the first power unit. Eskom is so desperate to have
the project finalised that it issued a letter to court, stating the
urgency of her husband returning to site.


Home Affairs official Mathews Nkuna, however, said Twart-Kirchhoff`s
permit was "a fake".


According to him, any visa permit linked to another`s permit should
correspond with the main holder`s permit. Nkuna said in this case it
was stated that the wife and children`s permits expired on March 19,
2018, while the husband`s permit expires on December 31, 2018. "This
document is fake and was not issued by Home Affairs," Nkuna
said.


He said the wife was in the country on a visitor`s permit, which had
expired months ago. Nkuna said the fact that she had been able to stay
in the country for all this time, without being detected, had a
negative effect on South Africa`s ability to manage immigration
effectively.


Judge Neil Tuchten ordered Home Affairs to allow Twarz-Kirchhoff back
into the country for now, until the dispute is resolved.