HARARE – Zimbabwe says approximately 3,624 nationals displaced from South Africa had been repatriated as of June 26, as it moved to defend delays in processing returnees that have caused frustration among those waiting to come home.
Information minister Zhemu Soda said an interministerial team had been deployed to Beitbridge “working around the clock to facilitate smooth border clearance and provide on-the-ground support to every returning citizen.”
There are no official figures on how many Zimbabweans live in South Africa. When Pretoria invited Zimbabweans to regularise their stay by applying for the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP), roughly 250,000 registered, though some estimates put the real population at up to ten times that number.
Most of those who have asked for repatriation are in Cape Town, where hundreds have been camping outside the Zimbabwean consulate in District Six ahead of Tuesday’s deadline set by the anti-immigrant groups for undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country.
Soda said president Emmerson Mnangagwa “has directed resources towards ensuring the safe and dignified return of every Zimbabwean who wishes to come back home,” and that the ministry of foreign affairs had mobilised logistics while additional manpower had been deployed to strengthen consular capacity.
On the delays drawing complaints from stranded returnees, Soda said these stemmed from “profiling requirements by the South African authorities,” which he described as “a mandatory security procedure undertaken by the host country” to check personal data against South Africa’s national data bank “to ensure returnees have no criminal issues in South Africa.”
Until that process is complete, he said, “our citizens remain under South African jurisdiction.”
Presidency spokesman George Charamba appeared to put some of the blame on the Zimbabweans themselves, suggesting some had left it late to seek help.
Soda said the finance ministry had extended the same import concessions previously available to ZEP holders to the new wave of returnees under the immigrants’ rebate of duty.
Returnees may import one vehicle under suspension of duty, with no permit required for vehicles older than 10 years, provided it was purchased before December 31, 2022, the ZEP expiry date. A duty rebate also applies to personal, household and business-related property bought before the same date, though the facility excludes new items and is “subject to evaluation to prevent abuse.”
Soda added that schools across the country had been instructed to absorb returnees’ children “within their catchment areas,” saying “no child shall be turned away.”
“Zimbabwe will always be happy to receive its nationals back home,” Soda said. “This is their country. This is their home.”
