"ZEP Holders Now Deserve South African Permanent Residence Status"

The High Court in Pretoria is on Friday, 14 April 2023 expected to hear the third and final argument in the challenge against Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s decision to discontinue the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) programme.

Zimbabwean Exemption Permit Holders Association (ZEPHA) legal counsel, Advocate Simba Chitando, told GroundUp they will ask the court to grant ZEP holders permanent residence in South Africa. He said:

ZEPHA believes that ZEP holders have lived in South Africa long enough to become residents and have taken the view that continuous extensions are unfairly expensive and unlawful.

We have waited a long time for this hearing, and hope for a favourable decision from the Court.

The termination of the ZEP scheme would mean that about 178 000 permit holders and their dependents will have to return to Zimbabwe or seek alternative visas or permits in South Africa.

Counsel representing the Zimbabwe Immigration Federation (ZIF) in the second application against South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi warned that forceful deportation of Zimbabweans would lead to human tragedy. Said Ngcukaitobi:

It’s an impractical thing. How is South Africa going to expel so many people on the first of July? How is this going to happen practically?

It’s completely averse for the minister to refuse to extend the benefits until the judges have decided what to do with this…

It’s a truly perverse position to adopt that you want a decision to be enforced even though you know the human tragedy that will underpin any massive migration of people.

This is not voluntary migration, this is going to be forced migration because it has to be executed by law.

ZIF is asking the court for an interim interdict to prevent the ZEP system from ending on 30 June 2023, so that ZEP holders will not be at risk of being declared illegal foreigners.

The Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) system was introduced more than a decade ago to regularise the status of Zimbabweans who were illegally in SA due to political and economic hardships at home.

The Department of Home Affairs last year announced that the ZEP system would be terminated in June 2023, by which time ZEP holders would have to apply for “regular” SA visas.

Several Lesotho nationals living and working under the so-called Lesotho Exemption Permit have likewise been told that their services are no longer required.

More: Pindula News