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South African home affairs Minister to meet her Zimbabwe counterparts
18 Feb 2011 at 05:20hrs | Views
South African home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will meet with her Zimbabwean counterparts on Monday to discuss delays in issuing passports to Zimbabweans seeking to regularise their stay in South Africa.
Dlamini-Zuma said on Friday her department's drive to issue valid residency, work and study permits to more than a quarter of a million Zimbaweans living in South Africa was being hampered by problems on Harare's part in providing applicants with passports.
"We have a dependency we cannot do anything about. It depends on them," she told a media briefing in Cape Town.
"We are still awaiting passports from the applicants who are awaiting them from the Zimbabwean government."
She said at this point it was not possible to say how many of the 275,762 Zimbabweans who had applied for documents to enable them to remain in South Africa, lacked valid Zimbabwean passports but hoped the meeting would make it clear.
The government last year launched a campaign to regularise Zimbabweans' status in South Africa after the political situation in the neighbouring state stabilised.
The meeting with Zimbabwe's two home affairs ministers, Kembo Mohandi and Theresa Makone, is expected to extend over two days.
Dlamini-Zuma said on Friday her department's drive to issue valid residency, work and study permits to more than a quarter of a million Zimbaweans living in South Africa was being hampered by problems on Harare's part in providing applicants with passports.
"We have a dependency we cannot do anything about. It depends on them," she told a media briefing in Cape Town.
"We are still awaiting passports from the applicants who are awaiting them from the Zimbabwean government."
She said at this point it was not possible to say how many of the 275,762 Zimbabweans who had applied for documents to enable them to remain in South Africa, lacked valid Zimbabwean passports but hoped the meeting would make it clear.
The government last year launched a campaign to regularise Zimbabweans' status in South Africa after the political situation in the neighbouring state stabilised.
The meeting with Zimbabwe's two home affairs ministers, Kembo Mohandi and Theresa Makone, is expected to extend over two days.
Source - Byo24News
