Tighter border controls for South Africa and Zimbabwe

TIGHTER border controls between Zimbabwe and SA were on the cards to stem the tide of "economic migrants" and "potential terrorists" from the Far East and Horn of Africa region, the countries' home affairs ministers announced yesterday.
Both countries have uncovered a scam in which such migrants have been using Zimbabwe and other neighbouring countries as conduits to enter SA illegally.
Zimbabwe's Co-minister for Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi, said the measures were necessary to safeguard regional security.
If "anyone comes from the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes (or) Asia … on a flight from any of these regions without the requisite documents required to enter the country, (then) that airline is fined and the people without documents immediately deported to their countries of origin on the next available flight", Mr Mohadi said.
His co-minister, Theresa Makone, said the tighter border controls were to protect Zimbabwe's and SA's vulnerable economic sectors from "unfair" competition from the economic migrants.
"We therefore have to protect our own people and our own industries," she said.
"Remember, we have invested quite heavily in the textile industry in both countries and our equipment is now lying idle."
The Zimbabwean ministers were speaking in Pretoria yesterday at the conclusion of a two-day official visit to meet Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma .
Ms Dlamini-Zuma has extended the deadline to the end of July for Zimbabwean authorities to issue valid passports to Zimbabweans who qualified to formalise their stay in SA.
Last year, the South African government granted Zimbabwean nationals a special dispensation to legalise their status in SA.
About 17000 of the 275000 Zimbabwean nationals who have applied required authentic documentation from the Zimbabwean authorities in Harare.
The delay in processing this number on time has been caused by the need to verify the nationality of the applicants by the Zimbabwean authorities.
Ms Dlamini-Zuma said SA would in future refuse entry to asylum seekers who were not from neighbouring states as international law stipulated that asylum seekers should seek refuge in their first safe port of entry before proceeding elsewhere.
This measure was intended to stop economic migrants from Asia seeking asylum in SA after they had entered other safe destinations , the minister said.