What may have been an entirely bona fide attempt by the Department of Home Affairs to clarify the matter on the looming expiration of permits issued to Zimbabwean nationals during a special dispensation period may actually have had the opposite effect, immigration lawyer Chris Watters said on Thursday.

“South African employers – who clearly have not been consulted on the matter – must be asking why this disruption is necessary and for how long their employees will have to linger in Harare?  Is the return of the employee contingent on satisfying some major or even insuperable obstacle or is this re-application a token exercise?” he asked in response to the Department of Home Affairs statement setting out that permits will expire in December 2014.

The special dispensation was introduced in 2009 to give those Zimbabweans working illegally in South Arica – as a result of the political and socioeconomic situation in their country – a chance to regularise their stay.

Under the dispensation, over 250 000 Zimbabwean nationals were granted four-year work and study permits.

However, concerns have been high among these Zimbabweans following Cabinet earlier this year announcing the upcoming expiration of the permits.

Permit holders will then be expected to re-apply for permits in Zimbabwe.

Watters believes this “re-application process” must fill many of the Zimbabweans with dread.

“Will this mean that some unscrupulous employers will be able to dismiss them from their jobs because they cannot even claim that they are merely “extending” their permits? 

“The Department clearly intends that there will be a clean break between periods spent employed in South Africa.  This must again bring to mind the plight of migrant workers during the apartheid era who were forced to return home so that no “rights” were acquired in South Africa,” he explained.

Home Affairs has stressed that more clarity will be provided on the process in due course, and a date of commencement of the process will be announced.

“It is not South Africa’s intention to reverse the benefits of the dispensation,” Home Affairs said earlier.

“The statement asks more questions that it answers,” Watters remarked.