Zimbabwean immigrants denied pay in Botswana

ILLEGAL Zimbabwean immigrants working in Botswana are being deprived of their salaries as police in the neighbouring country have intensified mass deportations particularly on month ends. Speaking during a meeting in Plumtree, participants said there was a need for the government to engage their Botswana counterparts on the issue.

"Zimbabweans are deported in large numbers when it is close to pay day. During this time illegal immigrants are shipped in masses before they are paid and it appears as something which is done deliberately.

"In the process people are being deprived of the money they would have worked for. We have tried to address this issue from district level but our Botswana counterparts have attributed their actions to their response to security threats," said a participant at the meeting.

"It is ideal that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contacts the embassy in Botswana over the way in which illegal immigrants are handled in the country because some of these people who are deported never get to receive the money they would have worked for," they said.

Speaking at the sidelines of the meeting, the Deputy Director responsible for informational relations in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Poem Mudyawabikwa, said the government was in the process of reaching a labour agreement with the neighbouring country.

"Our strategy as a ministry is to have a memorandum of understanding with Botswana in the fields of employment and labour. We are still in the process of crafting this MoU.w

"Our desire is to have a managed labour migration system where we will be having demand driven safe labour migration activities. That is to say we will be liaising with the Department of Labour on providing their country with workers on formal terms," said Mudyawabikwa.

He said a similar system had been made with South Africa but was yet to be implemented.

"This agreement requires the two countries involved to have labour centres which will be handling the movement of workers. This system will help us to reduce cases of repatriations because we will be referring people who already have their travel documents.

"The neighbouring country will alert us when they need workers and the labour centre will send people knowing that there are job opportunities already waiting for them. This will be unlike situations where people travel to Botswana aimlessly," he said.

"We have made a similar agreement with our South African counterparts but the system has not been implemented as yet. The labour centre is not yet operational but once it is, we will start by providing workers for the farming sector."

Various heads of government departments met on Thursday in Plumtree to map out their involvement in the welfare of deportees.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) recently reported that it had stopped rendering assistance to persons aged above 17 years deported from Botswana and South Africa citing increasing operational challenges.

IOM operates two reception and support centres in Plumtree and Beitbridge where illegal immigrants deported from Botswana and South Africa receive humanitarian assistance.

The organisation will be officially handing over the two centres to the government in January next year.

"The Ministry of Public Service will be assuming responsibility over the two centres beginning in January. It will now assume responsibility over the administrative work although IOM will still be there to offer education on safe migration.

"We are in a transitional period till end of December and government will now be responsible for the welfare of deportees. IOM will also be providing hot meals till April next year," said Mudyawabikwa.

IOM national programme manager Sam Grundy said the organisation was not pulling out completely but would still offer technical support in running the two centres.

He said some of their intervention strategies would also be determined by funds as they were shifting from offering humanitarian support to developmental.

The assistance that was offered by IOM to deportees included the provision of information on safe migration, health care services, overnight accommodation, family tracing, food and transport to their respective homes.