Zimbabwe and South Africa have agreed to improve the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on regularising labour migration between the two countries, so that it covers all the provinces in the country.

According to Zimbabwe’s Minister of Labour and Social Services, Ms Paurina Mpariwa, this was agreed to during a recent meeting with Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana in Cape Town.

The MoU, which was signed last year in September by Ministers Mpariwa and Mdladlana, currently helps facilitate the processing of immigration and employment requirements for Zimbabweans wishing to work on South African farms in the Limpopo Province only.

In an interview, Ms Mpariwa told Mirror that she had met her South African counterpart and they both agreed to improve the MoU, which currently caters for seasonal workers in mines and farms around the Limpopo province, so that it includes other provinces. The ministers also visited De Doorns in the Western Cape, where more than 2 000 Zimbabwean farm workers were chased out of their shacks by South Africans at the Stofland informal settlement late last year. The Zimbabweans were driven out by locals who accused them of stealing their jobs by accepting lower wages.

Mpariwa added that most of the workers had no proper travel documents, identity cards and work permits. “We have engaged the South African Department of Home Affairs and they are assisting us, so that the Zimbabweans secure proper documents because we also noted that a number of our people have no work permits, IDs, or passports.”

The main objective of the MoU is to regularise labour migration and strengthen co-operation between the two countries in the fields of labour, employment and safe migration.

Ministers Mdladlana and Mpariwa signed the document on behalf of their countries during a ceremony held at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Reception and Support Centre in Beit Bridge The development follows an increase in irregular migration, in which most locals used undesignated entry points along the Limpopo River to cross into South Africa illegally in search of jobs on farms.

A migration labour recruitment centre was also opened in Beit Bridge to help facilitate the processing of immigration and employment requirements for Zimbabweans wishing to work on farms in Limpopo Province.