The Zimbabwean government intends to engage the South African Government in another joint documentation exercise for Zimbabweans living illegally in the country.

Zimbabwe’s Home Affairs Minister, Mr Kembo Mohadi, said the main objective of the proposed exercise was to regularise the stay of all Zimbabweans in South Africa. He told Limpopo Mirror that Zimbabwe would request the South African government to allow for another documentation exercise.

"We have been engaging with South Africa to regularise the stay of our people and the process was suspended after the expiry of the moratorium in July 2010. We will see this year if we can re-do the process. We are going to talk to them and ask for another six months to undertake the exercise because many Zimbabweans are still not documented," he said.

Mohadi expressed concern at the increasing number of Zimbabweans who "continue to cross into South Africa without proper papers. This process of providing people who are already in South Africa with legal documents such as passports cannot continue forever," he said.

In April 2009, the SA government announced a moratorium on the deportation of Zimbabweans illegally staying in the country, during which they were granted a special dispensation to acquire [the documents] and make their stay in South Africa legal. According to the South African Home Affairs Department, 275 762 applications were received during the first and second phase of the process.

These applicants are a drop in the ocean in relation to the estimated two million Zimbabweans believed to be living in South Africa illegally.

The completion of the documentation process in July 2011 culminated in a massive deportation of illegal Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa, with more than 43 000 having been deported through Beit Bridge Border Post in the last 12 months at a rate of between 200 and 300 daily.

Mohadi urged Zimbabweans living outside the country, most of whom come home during the Christmas Holidays, to ensure they have the required documents before returning to neighbouring countries such as South Africa. The local passport office digitalised its operations a few months ago to speed up the processing of passports and temporary travel documents.

"We know there will be more people going to passport offices to get travel documents before they go back to South Africa and we are hopeful that, with the digitalisation, things like the processing of documents will be faster than before," said Mohadi.