Three Men On a Boat

So while everyone had their eyes on the whole Zuma case fiasco a few weeks back a little piece of news made its way into the middle pages. South Africa was giving an almost unconditional six month work and study permit to Zimbabweans in South Africa on asylum or whatever. Of course this seems all humanitarian and stuff but no nation has friends, just interests so the question would be what are the interests here and what happens now?

You see the fact of the matter, almost uncomfortable as it may seem to a lot of people is that South Africa has significantly huge section of its workforce coming from Zimbabwe and they are more often than not the highly skilled ones.

So is this move as benevolent as they would like to make it sound. I say not because the reality is that Zimbabweans have been casting their eye north and doing more than dreaming of a return home. That has set panic buttons all over the system cause what happens when you lose all those people and mostly because they do not have the right papers.

I mean it is not as if they will get kicked out after the sixth month period. I mean after all the World Cup is just around the corner isn't it?

Now the murmurings from sources of no particular repute is that South Africa is set to go one step further by suspending the requirement of a visa for Zimbabweans for two years from some time in May. In addition to that Zimbabweans would be allowed to stay for ninety days at a time. Now I cannot corroborate this but it makes for interesting reading.

Makes you think thought

Labels: South Africa visa Zimbabwe