TimesLive reports that about 178,000 Zimbabweans are at risk of deportation when the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) ends in December.

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) this week announced it was forging ahead with its plan to terminate the exemption permit and has told SA employers of Zimbabwean immigrants to start preparing before the deportations. The ZEPs were granted to Zimbabweans who moved to the country before 2009. The temporary measure was meant to regularise Zimbabweans’ presence in the country and allow them access to services such as banking. In court papers that the department filed at the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, it said only 6,000 of the 178,000 permit holders responded to DHA Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s calls last year for Zimbabweans to state their case before the dispensation lapses. The department was responding to an affidavit by the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF), which intends to take the government to court over its decision not to extend the exemption permit. DHA director-general Tommy Makhode said it had always been made clear that the ZEP was temporary. Makhode also said any ZEP holder who met the requirements of section 26 of the Immigration Act was entitled to apply for permanent residence on any of the grounds contained in that section.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Unathi Nkanjeni at BusinessLive
• Read too, Government defends its decision to end Zimbabwean permits, at GroundUp

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