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Cabinet announces Zimbabwe Exemption Permits will not be extended

Source: Groundup, 25/11/2021


Holders of the ZEPs given a year to migrate to other permits
The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit is coming to an end.
• The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit which expires on 31 December
will not be renewed Cabinet announced on Thursday.
• About 182,000 Zimbabweans who hold the permit have been given
a year’s grace to migrate to other permits to allow them to stay in
South Africa.
• The Cabinet decision is disappointing for many who now face an
uncertain future.
On Thursday, Cabinet announced that the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit
(ZEP), which ends 31 December, will not be extended.
However, Cabinet decided on a 12-month grace period during which time
ZEP holders “should apply for other permits appropriate to their
particular status or situation”. Those who are not successful will
have to leave South Africa or face deportation, said Cabinet.
This ends months of rising anxiety for about 180,000 Zimbabweans in
South Africa as the ZEP expiry date loomed and there had been no
indication of what government intended to do.
Permit holders were debating whether to return home for Christmas.
Many said banks had been refusing to grant them loans and cancelling
their pre-approved bond applications, while employers were not
renewing contracts because of their uncertain status. Cabinet’s grace
period will not necessarly help in this regard, and many ZEP holders
are unlikely to qualify for other permits.
Leaving the announcement to the eleventh-hour had also allowed for
misinformation that the South African government had extended the
permits by five years to circulate on social media, rumours which the
Cabinet statement referred to as fake news.
Back in October 2019, Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi told
GroundUp that the three special permits which were issued to legalise
the status of nationals from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Angola already
living in South Africa, would be renewed. At the time the minister
said they can’t stop renewing special permits if the problems that led
to those special permits are not yet resolved. But he also said that
permits can’t automatically be renewed by the department; it needed
Cabinet.
Cabinet has now spoken.
“I’m very disappointed with the decision by the Cabinet,” said
Advocate Simba Chitando, who filed papers in the Gauteng High Court in
October requesting the South African government to grant ZEP holders
permanent residency.
“I knew that the cancellation of the permit was being called for by
many political parties, many of whom did well in the elections. The
unfortunate decision has left litigation as the only viable solution
for ZEP holders, permanently resident in the country, and who have
given over a decade of their lives to this country,” Chitando told
GroundUp shortly after the Cabinet announcement.
The ZEP community was divided on Chitando’s legal challenge, who
feared it would ruin the chance of getting the permit extended. That
has now been put to bed.
Chitando said the ZEP exploited Zimbabwean labour and made them second
class citizens in a constitutional democracy, “renewable after every
four years, operating like a dompas from the apartheid era, in a
manner that Zimbabwean migrants to Europe, the US, and Australia, have
not experienced”.
“It is a slave permit, and an abomination to the Pan African principle
of ubuntu,” he said.
He is proceeding with his litigation.
Union of Zimbabwean Educators Western (UZEWC) said as much as they are
happy for the 12 month reprieve they still maintain that granting
permanent residency to deserving Zimbabweans should have been
considered.
“Zimbabweans have been on special work permits for more than ten
years, hence their stay in South Africa has been legal. They have been
paying taxes. Some have started families here, and have children,”
said Jack Mutsvairo, chairperson of the union.
“We also expect the DHA to expeditiously inform employers, creditors
and the banking sector … so that none of our members are prejudiced.”
“We also hope that the application for other suitable permits by
Zimbabweans will not be subjected to avoidable bureaucratic
shenanigans. Let this be a user-friendly application process with
predetermined timeframes.”
There are also other special exemption permits that will need
decisions:
On 16 August 2021, Home Affairs opened the application for an Angolan
Exemption Permit. The Angolan Special Permit (ASP) was first issued in
2018 and expires at the end of this year.
The Lesotho Exemption Permit (LEP) of 2019 expires on 31 December
2023.
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