Zimbabwe’s home affairs department says it cannot make any special efforts to help Zimbabweans facing deportation from South Africa, since they spurned opportunities they were granted to regularise their stay in the country. The registrar-general, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, said his department had afforded the Zimbabweans in South Africa a chance to regularise their stay, but some now wanting special help did not take up the offer. “There is nothing we can do about those who are facing deportation, because we gave them a chance to apply for passports, but they decided not to. Our team was in South Africa for a very long time and my understanding is that those who regularised their stay are not going to be affected,” Mudede said. Mudede said about 51 000 passports had been processed so far. The Zimbabwean Department of Home Affairs sent a team to South Africa to document Zimbabwean resident in the country. The team completed its work on January 31 this year and a total of 58 189 passport applications had been submitted then. The process had continued up to April 30. “Approximately 78 189 passport applications have since been received by the department and to date 51 014 passports have been processed,” Mudede said. In April last year, South Africa announced a moratorium on the deportation of Zimbabweans and granted them a special dispensation for one year, so that they could get documents from Zimbabwean officials based in South Africa. The dispensation was to allow them to normalize their stay in South Africa. The documentation process was then launched for Zimbabweans to get relevant permits to stay in the country legally from 2011. The process, which was initially supposed to end on December 31, was extended to 31 July because Zimbabwe was slow in processing passports for its citizens who did not have passports. South African home affairs spokesperson Mr Ronnie Mamoepa said the deportations would be carried out after the July 31 deadline, adding that they were on course to beat the deadline to provide permits to all eligible illegal Zimbabwean immigrants who applied to regularise their stay. "The process of providing permits is still underway and we are hopeful we will beat the deadline. We will take action once the process is complete, and that´s when we will announce how the deportations will be conducted," Mamoepa said.