Comments by Minister of Home Affairs Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the media. We are very happy to welcome Ministers Mohadi and Makone to South Africa. This was really a meeting to discuss issues of mutual interest that affect our two countries, the region and the continent.
So, we discussed general issues and I am very pleased to say we had very fruitful discussions on all the issues we deliberated on. We discussed, for instance, the movement of people in our region and continent and how to really deal with these movements of people. We also discussed the process we started together to normalise the stay of Zimbabweans who had come here in a period without any documents, during the period when we still required visas from Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean nationals came to South Africa without these documents. So, we discussed how to finalise that process.
And I think, we are happy with the discussions and starting with the process toregularise the stay of Zimbabwean nationals in South Africa – the majority of
Zimbabwean nationals who applied do have passports. So, as you know, we received close to 280 000 applications from Zimbabwean nationals to regularise their stay in the country. But only about 60 000 of these do not have passports. So, you can see the majority of the applicants have passports and their applications are being processed.
Only 60 000 of 280 000 are outstanding. So, we need to sort this out. But of these 60 000, half of them had not even applied for passports at the close of the process (31 December 2010). So we hope they are applying so they can receive their passports and be sorted out.
But a further 17 000 of those who had not applied for passports do not have any documentation that proves they are Zimbabwean nationals – IDs, birth certificates or any other documents. Their process will take a bit longer because we will have to send their names to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe will have to look at them to ascertain whether they are in their population register. Those that are not must be interviewed so this will also take a bit of time to resolve.
But we are happy with the process because it is a minority that still requires passports.
More than 200 000 have passports. So, there has been a lot of progress in this area. We also looked at the issues of migration and human trafficking and we had fruitful discussions in this area. We think we will also take this forward in the region. So this is in short what we discussed. My colleagues will provide further details.Comments by Zimbabwean co-Minister of Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi
Thank you very much director of ceremonies and good morning to members of the media fraternity. My name is Mohadi, as you have been told and I am the co-Minister of Home Affairs in Zimbabwe. The purpose of this press conference is for you to be briefed on what happened in our discussions.
Our host minister has aptly briefed you on the areas we discussed. These are areas of mutual interest, bilateral issues and it is common cause that from time to time we meet to discuss bilateral issues. And in these meetings we discussed the topical issue that brought myself and Minister Makone here last time, the regularisation of our citizens in South Africa. And we are glad that a lot of ground has been covered. Minister Dlamini Zuma has just indicated that of the approximately 280 000 applications, only 60 000 applicants await passports.
I am sure you will agree with me that this is quite a remarkable achievement. The few that remain include the 17000 the Minister has referred to. But when we look at the rate in which we are churning out passports in Zimbabwe, we think that within a very short space of time, say about 20 weeks, we will have issued everyone who has applied with the requisite documents
There are people who do not have any documents with them and these people will be referred back to Zimbabwe because for one to obtain a passport in Zimbabwe, one must have a birth certificate. So once a birth certificate is obtained, we can process the application for a passport. We are very pleased about the progress thus far.
We have also touched on regional matters, matters that affect migration in particular in our region, migration from the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes, and the attendant challenges they bring to the region. We have discussed extensively on this issue and we have agreed amongst ourselves that some of the issues we have raised need to have other ministries or stakeholders involved. So it is our view that in the next meeting, we will invite other ministries, the judiciary, the security agencies because we seem to be skeptical about whether these people are genuine refugees or not, in the sense that some may be coming to the region to run away from crimes, some may be associated with organisations that are outlawed internationally and we would require assistance with these issues. We will have to bring in other roleplayers so that whenever we deal with these issues we are all singing from the same page.
As a region we must look at the civil registration exercise. So, we looked at how this is proceeding in the region. Is there uniformity, if not and if there are shortcomings, how are these overcome. We also looked at the internationally prevalent issue of human trafficking of women and children because we do not know that these people who are transgressing our borders into our region are being trafficked or they are genuine immigrants. We need to look into all these issues.
We are happy with our discussions since last night and this morning. We need tocommend our issues on a job well done in terms of the exercise we have undertaken to get Zimbabweans registered and regularised. We are happy with what they have done. We hope that in the 20 weeks I have referred to we can conclude this matter and move onto new issues.
There will always be people who want to travel to South Africa so this is what we have discussed and it has been a very constructive meeting and I would like to thank our South African counterparts for hosting us and bringing this meeting to its logical conclusion.
Comments by Zimbabwean Co-Minister of Home Affairs, Theresa Makone
Thank you director of ceremonies, good morning ladies and gentlemen of the media. The pleasure of speaking after everyone else is that there is not much else to be said because everyone else has spoken.Nonetheless, I will just add a few things.
Let me begin by thanking our host Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma for the hospitality extended to my colleague and myself, for the well prepared meetings. Most of our business was concluded last night and I want to thank Minister Dlamini Zuma for listening to our predicament in terms of the rate at which we produce our passports and for doing the calculations with us to see how long it will take for us to conclude this exercise. I am glad to say our registrar-general was with us and he personally committed himself because of the effort and time he will be devoting to this exercise to ensure its timeous conclusion.
And I want to thank Minister Dlamini Zuma for extending the period from what we had originally understood to be 16 weeks to 20 weeks for us to complete our work. We have received a grace period of an extra month which would allow us to complete the process of providing passports to all applicants as well as documents to those who do not have any such. That is really very good for our people and I am sure they will welcome this outcome in particular since they are waiting to hear this wherever they may be in South Africa.
So, I can safely say at this stage, looking at the numbers and the rate at which the registrar-general has committed himself to churning out passports, we should not have any further challenges. But touching on the regional and continental issues to do with the migration of people, it is very obvious that South Africa continues to attract people by virtue of its developed economic status.
People find it easy to come and work in South Africa.But there is another development that is of concern to South Africa as well as those of us who are neighbours to South Africa, people coming from far away, like the Horn of Africa who pass through many borders without any problems. There does not seem to be any commitment to hold them in other countries if they are genuine refugees because when you leave your country, you should seek refuge in a neighbouring country. But if you have to cross so many borders to get to South Africa, I think there are other issues which must be examined and this brings in issues of security.
In addition, not integrating yourself properly when you have arrived in South Africa also causes problems.
We also discussed the increase in the number of people from the Far East coming to South Africa which affects all the countries in the region. Obviously some of this has an economic impact on our countries. We are finding that in some areas of investment where our people should be working, are now overcrowded with those people which affects our own industries. We have not reached any particular conclusion but we agreed that as a region, we should look at having a uniform understanding of the areas of investment we would like to open to foreign nationals that will be beneficial to our countries and which areas should be left to our local communities that do not require much investment or resources. We must be able to offer our people opportunities to get into such areas. That is really mostly what we discussed and I would like to thank our host again for having us here and we hope we will soon have an opportunity to invite her to our country and welcome her.
Thank you.
Questions and answers
Question: On the issue of government churning out passports – what has the Zimbabwean government done to ensure you can churn out these passports. What has the South African government done to assist you?
Question: Ministers, could you just clarify, you said the deadline had been extended – does this mean you will have completed this process by the end of August 2011?
Question: Regarding border crossings, has there been any resolution on the strengthening of borders?
Question: The 17 000 who do not have any documentation, do they have the same deadline? What is the process? Must they go back to Zimbabwe to finalise this process?Are you confident that the approximately 280 000 Zimbabwean nationals who have applied for documentation, are the majority of Zimbabweans in the country?
Answer: (Minister Dlamini Zuma) Let me begin with the last question. There are many more Zimbabweans in South Africa besides the 280 000 who have applied to be documented. But many are here legally and working in various areas. These are not the Zimbabweans we are referring to – we are referring to those who were undocumented, we think this is a reasonable number of those who were undocumented.
But we will know this once we have concluded the process, whether there are any who did not come forward. I did not say the 17 000 without documents had to go back to Zimbabwe – I said we will provide these names to the Zimbabwean government so that they can check on their database is these people are there. If they are, they must be provided with the necessary documentation.
For those who are not in the database, these people must be interviewed to see if they are Zimbabwean nationals. We will take it from there. This is the process. They are subjected to the same deadline because those producing passports for those who require them will not be the ones verifying Zimbabwean nationality. So, this will be a parallel process.
If you recall, initially we said we would conclude the process by June 2011. We have now extended the period for processing to end July 2011. This will include the provision of passports to those who do not have them. It will also include a wrap up process. This is the deadline for the documentation. It will also help for those Zimbabweans who have not applied, those with birth certificates and IDs, who had not applied for passports. It would be helpful if they could submit their applications for passports so they can meet the deadline. We will not extend the deadline for people who have not applied because it would mean they are not serious because by the end of July it will be seven months since we concluded the process to receive applications from Zimbabwean nationals requiring documentation. They would have had ample time to apply if they wanted to. So, by end of July 2011 everyone should have a passport so we can wrap up this process. It does not mean that Zimbabweans will no longer come to South Africa but we do not expect Zimbabweans to come to South Africa without documents or illegally through the fence because no visas are required to enter South Africa. So if people cross the fence, they are breaking the law and they will be arrested and dealt with for breaking the law because there is no reason for them to not have documents unless they have motives best known to themselves.Even now, if people cross the fence they must be arrested and dealt with in that way because we do not require visas any longer. I will leave the rest to my colleagues. (Minister Makone) We must also consider that of these 17 000 without documentation, not all may actually be Zimbabwean nationals. Some may be other nationals who have realised that many Zimbabweans do not have documents and merely classified themselves as such.
The process recommended by the registrar-general is as follows – he will send two officials with a database to South Africa and those without documents will be thoroughly interviewed. The names, surnames, names of parents, etc must also correlate with what is on the database. This will enable us to separate the Zimbabwean nationals from those identifying themselves as Zimbabwean nationals. Also, the deadline was extended to meet the figures provided by our registrar-general because he has said that he is able, using Saturdays and Sundays, to produce 2 500 passports a week. We calculated the
number of weeks required to produce the outstanding passports and we came up with 20 weeks to finalise this process.But remember, the 60 000 outstanding passports was the figure until 31 December 2010.
I am not sure how these people are able to get the prices they do but I will be very very surprised if they have papers that show they come through legal channels and pay duties. They are therefore able to undercut our own tradesmen. This has resulted in, in instances of our own countries being able to grow cotton and produce local cloth, it not being viable for them to do so because of the dumping of clothing on our markets. We therefore have to protect our own people and our own industries. Remember, we have invested quite heavily in the textile industry in both countries and our equipment is now lying idle. We therefore have to as countries, examine which areas of investment add value to our people rather than remove value. This is however not something South Africa and Zimbabwe can address by themselves. It is something that Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the continent must look into.We must assess which areas of investment are really going to make a difference in terms of the development of the continent.
The Minister has just reminded me that the figure provided by the registrar-general for the production of passports is 3 000 passports a week. So if you look at this over 20 weeks, you will have 60 000 passports. This includes the undocumented people we have referred to. (Minister Mohadi) I am happy I am speaking last – he who laughs last, laughs best. I want to raise two questions – one is a generic question regarding assistance provided by South Africa to Zimbabwe. It not specify whether on the production of passports or other forms of assistance. There is a lot of assistance South Africa has provided to Zimbabwe. Firstly, there is the opportunity for us to come to South Africa to register our people. Secondly, South Africa has extended the deadline, as you have just heard, to the end of July 2011. That is assistance provided by South Africa.
So we would want to thank South Africa very much for their assistance. We are talking here about a process, not an event.We will always have Zimbabweans coming to South Africa. Zimbabweans have been crossing the border since the war of liberation in 1980. After that people have been flocking to South Africa. This is therefore a phenomenon. But what we want to achieve is that each and every individual who comes to South Africa is in possession of documents.
They must hold valid documents so that he comes to South Africa legally. This is
what we are dealing with ourselves – not how many Zimbabweans are in South Africa, but how many are in the country legally. The second area i want to address is the strengthening of our borders – let me speak for the region, in the region we have our own meetings, the Inter-State Defence and Security meeting in Southern African Development Community (SADC) and in that gathering we look at issues like borders and how we can secure them. We have had joint operations in many areas.
The most recent of which had to do with the military, Operation Golfinho. We have the police having joint operations at border posts trying to ward off these people. Mind you, our borders are long and porous. Zimbabwe’s eastern border stretches up to Mozambique. It is quite long.You cannot have a policeman at each and every meeting so people are able to find ways to enter the country. But we have instituted measures.
Anyone who comes from the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes, Asia, on board or on a flight, from any of these regions without the requisite documents required to enter the country, that airline is fined and the people without documents immediately deported to their countries of origin on the next available flight. But there are other areas as well where people are dropped in neighbouring countries, they walk into Zimbabwe, traverse Zimbabwe and then cross into South Africa. We need to plug these areas.
We are even working with the IOM to plug these loopholes. It is not just the trafficking of humans that we are talking about, there are also security concerns because we do not know these people. We do not know what they are after, we do not know if they are fleeing from justice.
You will remember that the Far East or Asia is an area where we have a lot of activities that are taking place, this is where terrorist organisations emanate from. But we need to guard against this, we need to protect our countries and region. So, we are saying, as South Africa and Zimbabwe, we have agreed we will do everything in our power to prevent these people from coming into the country.But over and above this, we want to take this issue to SADC so that our neighbours within SADC are aware of our bilateral position, and maybe to the AU so the continent is aware of
our position.
The Ministers have addressed the situation where if you are a refugee, you must seek refuge at the first safe country. If you cross six other borders to seek refugee status, you probably have a different motive altogether. They do this in order to come to South Africa and Zimbabwe to clean their ill-gotten monies. This has security implications.We are looking at everything in its totality.
We are also looking at, as I said earlier, the issue of civil registrations. So, the meeting that we have had, is a pre-cursor to some of the meetings we want to have within SADC and perhaps at the AU. This is our intention.
Question: You have been talking of people coming from other countries, what will you do about people who slip through the cracks? Do you have a way of dealing with these issues including arrest and prosecution?
Question: Minister Mohadi, some of the people you mentioned who are fleeing from justice – do you have plans to track such individuals?
Question: It is an incredible achievement to move from producing 500 passports a week to 3000. How have you achieved this?Question: Minister Mohadi, are you saying Zimbabwe is a destination for foreigners? It seems to me that people have been leaving Zimbabwe?
Answer: (Minister Dlamini Zuma) I think we have said right from the beginning that we did not reach conclusions on these matters because these are matters we think SADC should discuss since they affect the region, and to some extent the continent. So, we have not come to conclusions, we just discussed the matter and said this matter must be discussed by the region and SADC.
And also, at the last press conference, the figures have not changed. It was 500 passports per day. So, if you calculate it, it is the same because passports will now be produced on weekends. They have not added more passports per day but rather more passports per week. It was always 500 passports per day that could be produced. The refugee laws are also very clear – we are not talking about genuine refugees here. We are not talking about genuine tourists.We are talking about a different category of people who deliberately come to these countries illegally because obviously if you are coming from Asia as a refugee, you will go to the next safe country, as the law says. You will not cross seas, valleys, oceans and lakes and many other countries. We all in SADC subscribe to the protection of genuine refugees. (Minister Makone) I think the rest of the questions are directed to me – firstly, let me put this correctly, when I was talking about fugitives from justice, I was not talking about Zimbabweans coming here because if so, we have laws between South Africa and Zimbabwe that can address this. I am talking about people who come from far and beyond.
If that be the case, then why don’t we evoke the justice system to deal with this? Yes, we can do this but there is a difference between the interpretations here – if someone says I am a refugee and you take him to court and the court rules that he is indeed a refugee fleeing injustice and persecution, our hands are tied. That is why I said we need to bring in other roleplayers so we are at one when we deal with this – justice, the security ministries and the like. Some people will aim to capitalise on this matter. Then what is Zimbabwe doing – is it a transit or conduit?
What I can say is that the destination is usually not Zimbabwe. The destination is South Africa given that the South African economy is one of the largest, if not the largest in Africa. So, people will be coming to South Africa so Zimbabwe is used as a passage to South Africa. Usually we used to send such people to the refugee camps if they claim to be refugees. Once this is done, we are no longer responsible for such people – they are the responsibility of the United Nations.
What happens there is not our responsibility. But they usually find their way back to South Africa. Hence we brought in the aspect of human trafficking because perhaps something is happening behind the scenes that we do not know about. Most times they claim not to have any money with them but when they travel to South Africa some even establish businesses. So, to be more precise, Zimbabwe is used as a transit.
