Harare, - The Identification production centre for passports based at KG Six Army Headquarters in Harare was on Friday gutted down by fire shattering hopes of many Zimbabweans who were hoping to get passports so that they could beat South Africa's deadline to regularise their stay in that country.
The deadline was on Friday. The SA government
said on Friday it had received about 230 000 applications from Zimbabweans who
are avoiding deportations.
The gutting of the identification centre in
Harare forced suspension of business. This came at a time when Zimbabwe turned
down an offer for a passport making machine by South Africa.
"The
production centre is on fire we were nearly burnt inside the building," a source
told Radio VOP.
The centre is used to verification of applicants and
production of passport books.
Radio VOP could not immediately ascertain
the cause of the fire and if there were any people injured or how much damage
was done to the building.
The co-Minister of Home Affairs Theresa Makone
could not confirm to the fire outbreak. She promised to come back with a
confirmation after ascertaining but had not done so by the time of
writing.
“I am on holiday and not aware about that but let me find out
and I will come back to you,” said Makone.
Registrar General Tobaiwa
Mudede was not available for comment either.
Meanwhile the Zimbabwean
civic society organisations in South Africa have urged the South African
government to extend the deadline to document Zimbabweans.
The South
African government said several times that it was not going to extend the
December 31, 2010 deadline.
The organisation is arguing that the deadline
which was announced three months ago was never realistic. It also slammed the
government of Zimbabwe for dithering when offered a passport making machine by
the South African government.
“South Africa's December 31 deadline was
never realistic, and we warned them from the onset of the urgent need to extend
that deadline for a meaningful regularisation process. The processing of
applications took too long, way beyond their promise of a ten day turn around
period per application,” said Dewa Mavhinga, the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
(CiZC) coordinator in South Africa in an interview with Radio VOP.
CiZC
is a coalition of Zimbabwean organisations in and outside the country working to
solve the political and economic crisis facing the country.
Thousands of
Zimbabweans face deportation from South Africa if they don’t register themselves
with the Home Affairs department in South Africa.
The Zimbabwean
government has been battling to register millions of Zimbabweans in that
country. It sent a total of 47 officers to process passports, birth certificates
and identity documents. However, it has been failing to cope.
The South
African government offered the country a passport printing machine to ease the
problem. The machine which has a capacity to produce 4000 passports in an hour
was turned down by the government on “security grounds.” This is despite the
fact that the single machine being used only has a capacity to print 500
passports a day.
“The Zimbabwe government has certainly been most
unhelpful and insensitive to the plight of Zimbabweans in South Africa. It is
sheer indifference and lack of care for the people, not mere bureaucratic
bungling that explains failure by the Zimbabwe government to confirm and accept
SA's offer to assist with the making of passports. The Zimbabwe Consulate in
South Africa is clearly out of touch with the needs of Zimbabweans here,” said
Mavhinga.
Gabriel Shumba, the Director of the Pretoria-based Zimbabwe
Exiles Forum (ZEF) also weighed in with the call for an extension of the
deadline.
“If the programme is being done sincerely then the deadline
should be extended,” said Shumba.
ZEF is an organisation that takes care
of Zimbabweans living in the Diaspora. The South African Home Affairs Minister,
Nkosazana Zuma has reiterated that the deadline will not be extended and urged
Zimbabweans to register themselves or else face immediate deportation from South
Africa.
http://www.voanews.com
Many
Zimbabweans in South Africa praised authorities there for showing
efficiency
and flexibility in the documentation process - and had harsh
words for their
own government’s lackluster response
Benedict Nhlapo & Jonga
Kandemiiri | Johannesburg/Washington 31 December
2010
A top
official of South Africa's Department of Home Affairs on Friday
declared
success in a months-long program to document the estimated two
million
Zimbabweans living in the country as a registration deadline at
midnight
December 31 loomed hours away.
Home Affairs Department Director General
Mkuseli Apleni said authorities did
everything they could to accommodate
every Zimbabwean prepared to legalize
his or her residency status, VOA
Studio 7 correspondent Benedict Nhlapho
reported from
Johannesburg.
Though Zimbabweans were still lining up at Home Affairs
offices around the
country on Friday, most queues had disappeared by
afternoon as staff
accepted applications. Many Zimbabweans will complete
their applications
with missing documentation in early 2011, though Apleni
said most
applications should be processed by April or so.
Many
Zimbabweans in South Africa praised authorities there for showing
efficiency
and flexibility in the documentation process - and had harsh
words for their
own government’s lackluster response, especially its refusal
of technical
assistance from Pretoria.
Zimbabwean Co-Minister of Home Affairs Theresa
Makone confirmed that Harare
refused an offer of access to advanced printing
and binding equipment to
make passports, which thousands of Zimbabweans need
to complete their
residency applications.
Makone said Harare cited
security issues in its decision not to accept
Pretoria's offer - but added
that she did not know what security risks were
perceived by
Harare.
She told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri that she personally regreted
the s
decision because using the South African equipment would have helped
many
Zimbabweans.
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Programs Manager
Pedzisai Ruhanya said he
believes the decision not to accept South Africa's
offer of assistance
making passports came not from the government but
President Robert Mugabe's
ZANU-PF, which fears the consequences if
Zimbabweans in South Africa can
readily travel home to vote in elections.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/
Thousands now fear humiliation of deportation
after failing to register by
December 31 cut-off
Jan 1, 2011 8:21 PM | By
PREGA GOVENDER
Time's up for illegal Zimbabweans in South Africa. As
thousands queued
outside Department of Home Affairs offices countrywide this
week in a
last-minute scramble to legalise their stay in South Africa, the
department
was adamant that there would be no extension of the deadline,
which ended on
Friday.
With barely hours to go before the cut-off,
only 250633 Zimbabweans had
applied to home affairs to legalise their stay,
sparking fears of mass
deportations of those who had failed to apply in
time.
However, home affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa, would not comment
on when
deportations would start, saying they were "focusing on mobilising
people to
regularise their stay in South Africa".
But Zimbabweans
such as Roselyn Sithole are determined to avoid the
humiliation of being
herded into police vans and deported.
Despite being booted out of the
long queue that snaked around the block at
the home affairs offices in
Harrison Street, Johannesburg, on Thursday
morning, the heavily pregnant
woman was determined to remain there until her
application to legalise her
stay in the country had been completed.
Sithole, 28, who is expecting her
first child in a month's time, had been
waiting in the queue since 5am after
walking two kilometres from her tiny
apartment in
Braamfontein.
Around 9am the hairdresser was ordered to move to the back
of the queue by
an unsympathetic policeman who thought she had jumped the
queue.
Despite her aching and swollen legs, she took her place at the
back and
bided her time.
Ironically, home affairs officials and
policemen stationed at the gates of
the offices told the Sunday Times that
preference to be at the head of the
queue was given to pregnant
women.
"If I go to the cops, they will embarrass me in front of the
others," said
Sithole.
She pointed to a policeman, saying: "He
embarrassed me. He pushed me
around."
She added: "I don't want to be
deported like an animal. That's why I am
here."
She expressed the
hope that the deadline for applications for work, business
and study permits
would be extended.
"As you can see, we are too many here."
Later
in the day, as the rain pelted down, Sithole, who had come armed with
an
umbrella, was still several hundred metres from the entrance.
Up until
December 21 last year, home affairs had received 127564
applications for
permits.
Another Zimbabwean waiting patiently in the queue, Patricia
Vundhla, 43, a
domestic worker living in Doornfontein, had been to the
Harrison Street
offices on three days this week in the hope of completing
her application
for a permit.
Although home affairs had relaxed the
requirements for applying for permits,
she, like many of her compatriots,
was not aware of the changes.
"My employer, for whom I have been working
for seven years, has refused to
give me a letter confirming I am employed by
her," she said.
This was one of the requirements that were relaxed by
home affairs.
As the Sunday Times listened to her story, a warrant
officer shoved and
pushed a group of queue-jumpers, hitting one of them with
his baton.
Scenes of chaos at the Zimbabwean consulate in Edenvale
earlier this week,
where queues were as long as 7km, had quiet-ened down by
Thursday afternoon.
Themba Twala, 26, a waiter formerly from Bulawayo,
arrived at the consulate
at midnight on Wednesday to apply for his
passport.
He had hoped to be first in the queue on Thursday morning, but
ended up
being number 50.
Twala, whose family live in the UK, said it
was his dream to return to
Zimbabwe one day, but he would go back only once
circumstances had changed.
"I am tired. I just want to go home and
sleep," he said, barely two hours
before he was due back at work.
The
long queues, however, provided ample business opportunities for taxi
drivers
and vendors stationed outside the Zimbabwean consulate.
Among those who
made a killing was Zimbabwean-born Emmanuel Mabeza, an
auto-electrician.
Mabeza was selling between 80 and 100 plates of pap
and steak daily at R25
each.
"We are not taking advantage of the
situation or exploiting the people. It's
just a good business opportunity,"
he said.
Other vendors were selling a plate of food for between R30 and
R35.
Taxi drivers were charging passengers R8 a trip between Edenvale and
the
Johannesburg CBD.
Mamoepa said: "We are happy at the large
numbers of people who have turned
up at our offices in an attempt to
regularise their stay."
http://www.afriquejet.com
Harare, Zimbabwe - Air
Zimbabwe said Friday it had requested US$ 500 million
from the government,
its sole shareholder, to buy four new planes to improve
operations. Airline
chairman Jonathan Kadzura said the carrier wanted to buy
two regional jets
and two long-haul aircraft to beef up its current fleet
made up of
30-year-old planes.
He said the existing fleet was not viable to operate
in terms of fuel
consumption and costly regular servicing.
"We have
taken our request for capital to the shareholder and we are still
awaiting a
response. We need to get two regional planes and two long-haul
planes," he
said.
"That could cost half a billion dollars," said Kadzura.
Air
Zimbabwe flies to many regional routes in southern Africa, and
internationally to United Arab Emirates, China and the United
Kingdom.
But it is severely cash-strapped and unable to even pay its
staff.
Last week, its pilots went on strike over pay, the latest in a
series.
Pana 01/01/ 2011
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Radio VOP
Saturday, 01 January 2011
12:22
Harare - Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has rubbished assertions
by
President Robert Mugabe’s lawyers that the 86-year old leader cannot be
sued
arguing he can be taken to court on constitutional
matters.
President Mugabe’s lawyer, Maxwell Ranga, in opposing an application
by
Tsvangirai seeking the annulment of the re-appointment of provincial
governors by the President, the lawyer said in terms of Rule 18 of the High
Court Rules, RGN1047/1971, it was not possible to sue a sitting
President.
The Rule 18 reads: “No summons or other civil process of the court
may be
sued out against the President or against any of the judges of the
High
Court without the leave of the court granted on court application being
made
for that purpose.”
Ranga said it was clear from the said Rule that
leave to institute
proceedings against the President was required before an
application could
be instituted against him.
“The Applicant (Tsvangirai)
has neither alleged that he obtained such leave,
nor has he attached to this
application proof of such leave. It is
respectfully submitted that no such
leave has been obtained in terms of the
Rules of this Honourable Court,”
said Ranga. But Tsvangirai, in an answering
affidavit said the simplistic
interpretation placed on the Rule 18 by
respondents leads to absurdities
which were not intended when the rule was
made. It does not make sense to
argue that one must ‘sue the President for
authority to sue the
President’.”
“I am advised and respectfully believe that the context of Rule
18 of the
administrative rules of this Honourable Court is inapplicable in
the
circumstances of this case generally and in constitutional cases in
particular. The answering affidavit filed on 21 December 2010. “It appears
to me, that Rule 18 came about during the pre and post colonial era of a
ceremonial, non executive Head of State such as the Queen of England,
Governors of Southern Rhodesia, Presidents of Rhodesia and the first
President of independent Zimbabwe,” Tsvangirai said.
“This is no longer
the position in Zimbabwe’s constitutional democracy. Rule
18 was not
designed to and cannot be used to defeat or delay superior rights
and
obligations enshrined in the constitution especially where the issues
are of
importance as the case here.” Last month Tsvangirai petitioned the
High
Court to annul the reappointments of provincial governors and resident
ministers by President Mugabe arguing they were
unconstitutional.
Tsvangirai said he was surprised President Mugabe and the
other respondents
had taken a “so simplistic a view of the otherwise
serious” constitutional
issue in his application before the High Court. The
Prime Minister cited
President Mugabe as the first respondent. The other
respondents are David
Karimanzira, Cain Matema, Martin Dinha, Aeneas
Chigwedere, Farber
Chidarikire, Jaison Machaya, Christopher Mushowe,
Angeline Masuku, Thokozile
Mathuthu, Titus Malukele and Ignatious Chombo,
the local government
minister.
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=25524
By Gerald
Chateta
Published: January 1, 2011
Harare - The Commercial
Farmers Union says because of political
interference and disturbances which
characterised the commercial farming
sector in 2010 Zimbabwe will once again
this season rely on food aid.
“The rains have been fine, even the small
scale farmers were assisted with
inputs, so there might be a slight
improvement but once again I am 100%
convinced that we will be unable to
feed ourselves which is unfortunate
given the fact that we have the
potential to feed ourselves and we can
export and earn foreign currency, but
this won’t happen again this season
unfortunately. As long as politics
remain at play the country’s agric sector
will not fully recover,”CFU
President Dion Theron said in an interview.
Zimbabwe has been depending
on food aid from the donor community since the
year 2000 when it embarked on
the controversial land reform program which
was engineered by war
veterans.
The chaotic land reform program which ZANU-PF justified as a
correction of
land imbalance between the blacks and former colonial masters
has been
blamed by observers as the root cause of famine despite good rain
seasons.
The international community whose citizens were the most victims
of the land
reform described it as racial as it targeted white farmers
only.
Theron said it was disappointing to note that land invasions
continued in
2010 despite the new political dispensation.
“Its the
production that gets affected, investors might move on and engage
into
something else but production suffers. We had farmers getting harassed
and
taken to court and these are highly productive farmers we are talking
about,
and this has affected the full recovery of the agric sector, “he
added
http://www.afriquejet.com
Harare, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe Friday banned chicken
imports from a major South
African supplier after press reports said the
company was exporting expired
products which posed a health risk. The media
last week accused Supreme
Poultry, the biggest supplier of chicken to
Zimbabwe, of re-packaging
expired meat for export.
Authorities said
an investigation had been ordered into the reports, and in
the meantime
banned chicken imports from the company.
William Shereni, a livestock and
veterinary director in the Ministry of
Agriculture in Zimbabwe, said the ban
would not affect two other South
African chicken exporters.
"The
suspension is a precautionary measure to allow for investigations on
compliance with veterinary health standards following press reports of
malpractice by Supreme Poultry Botshabelo plant in Bloemfontain," he
said.
Zimbabwe traditionally is a poultry exporter, but became a net
chicken
importer after controversial land reforms which drove thousands of
whites
off their farms for black resettlement.
Pana 01/01/ 2011