Passport applications on hold

THE Zimbabwe government has closed fresh applications for passports by locals seeking to regularise their stay in South Africa. 
Co-Home Affairs minister Theresa Makone yesterday could neither confirm nor deny the development.
Exile organisations in South Africa on Wednesday met top Home Affairs officials led by the ministry's director-general Mkuseli Apleni and the chief director of the Zimbabwe Documentation Project Jacob Mamabolo where the officials announced that new passport applications would not be entertained.
The meeting also focused on ways to deal with problems dogging the registration process such as late processing of passports by the Zimbabwean government.
According to the Pretoria-based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF), Apleni confirmed that new applications for passports in that country would not be accepted. Apleni also said that deportations of undocumented Zimbabweans would start in August.
"Director-General Apleni reiterated that the interest of the (South African) government was not to deport people but to bring back dignity to Zimbabweans in the country," said ZEF executive director Gabriel Shumba.
At the meeting, it was announced that South African Home Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will next month meet with her Zimbabwean counterparts co-Home Affairs ministers Makone and Kembo Mohadi to discuss issues related to the documentation process. The ministers' meeting will be prefaced by another between Apleni and the top Zimbabwe embassy officials.
"South Africa's open offer to Zimbabwe still stands and if Zimbabwe needs assistance, South Africa will assist in any way that it can," Apleni told the meeting.