Pretoria News -  Dec 18, 2020

Pretoria - A Zimbabwean citizen who had been kicked out of South Africa and deported back to Zimbabwe has received an early Christmas gift.

The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria has ordered Home Affairs to allow Gibson Tawodzera back into the country

At the time, Home Affairs had, out of the blue, 13 years after his South African wife had died, insisted that the marriage was all along a sham.

The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria has now ordered the department to allow Gibson Tawodzera back into the country and reissue him with his permanent residency permit.

He approached the court after Home Affairs told him that his marriage was non existent and he could not remain in the country.

Tawodzera entered South Africa in 2000 and two years later he married Bongiwe Sombudla, a South African citizen. The director-general of the department issued Tawodzera with a permanent residence permit in 2004.

In terms of the emigration law, as it then read, Home Affairs could issue a permanent residence permit to any person who is the spouse of a South African, provided that the department was satisfied that “a good faith spousal relationship exists”.

The 2005, the Immigration Act was amended, which made it more difficult to obtain permanent residence in South Africa. It required a foreign spouse to have been married to a South African citizen for at least five years.

Sombudla died in 2006, but her husband nonetheless retained his permanent residency status. This was because his marriage had been terminated by her death and not because they had separated.

Almost 13 years later, in March 2019, Home Affairs sent a letter to Tawodzera recording that he acquired permanent residence by marriage, but alleging that “it appears that the marriage was fraudulent”.

The letter went on to allege that Tawodzera’s permit “was therefore issued on a misrepresentation” and that he was now a foreign national who was in the country illegally.

This was the start of Tawodzera’s long and fruitless struggle with the department in a bid to try and convince them that he and his wife loved each other and that her death was the only reason why they were apart.

The court had criticised the conduct of the department on various levels, including that it never once mentioned why it deemed the marriage to have been a sham.

The department said that Tawodzera’s permanent residence permit was invalid because it was obtained in breach of the Immigration Act.

It was argued that acquisition of permanent residency by marriage was only possible if the applicant had been the spouse of a citizen or permanent resident for five years.

The department argued that Tawodzera was married to Sombundla for less than four years before her death. He could accordingly not have lawfully acquired permanent residence, they said.

But Judge SDJ Wilson said Tawodzera’s permanent residence permit was granted under a more generous regime than now applies.

The highwater mark of the respondents’ case seems to be that Tawodzera’s permanent residence permit was invalid because his marriage to Sombundla was a sham. But the department had produced anything to substantiate this – not to Tawodzera or the court, the judge said.

Tawodzera was arrested last year for being in the country illegally and before he was deported. The prosecutor at the time told the court that no one from Sombudla’s family knew of his marriage. But the judge now remarked that there is no evidence substantiating it.

The judge said under these circumstances, Tawodzera must be allowed to return to South Africa, where he had been staying for 20 years and had made a living for himself.

www.samigration.com

Lisbon Golden Visa property programme: Separating fact from fiction

3rd December 2020 - by  Biznews

The programme is pretty much as it was, when it started out in 2012. I think it’s close to €5bn that has flowed into the programme, which has been incredibly valuable to the Portuguese economy and the state of the country as a whole. Right now, it’s business as usual. There have been interesting speculations about an imminent change, but fundamentally the programme has encouraged a massive investment in real estate. Many of our clients at LX Living have seen fit to follow that opportunity which allows you to get the Golden Visa and ultimately, the European passport within the five-six year timeframe.

On speculation and misinformation surrounding the Golden Visa programme:

The success of the programme in Portugal, sort of had the impact of gentrification. Gentrification is a challenge around the world, where wealthier people buy into poorer areas and change the character of those areas. One of the downsides is that more often than not, people are displaced. That’s exactly what has happened – particularly in the city of Lisbon and Porto. Where we focus is Lisbon. There has been a level of gentrification and some sort of backlash. Sadly, these things are unavoidable and need to be confronted, to find some sort of elegant solution – including affordable housing, social housing to accommodate people who no longer can afford to live in areas where their families have lived for centuries.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet has approved a draft One-Stop Border Policy (OSBP) for public consultation.

In a post-cabinet briefing on Friday (4 December), government said that the creation of the OSBP seeks to ‘harmonise the movement of people and goods between South Africa’s land ports of entry and its neighbouring countries’.

The proposals in the policy further seek to address congestion which results in delays, particularly by cross-border travellers and traders.

“This policy gives effect to the One-Stop Border Framework that was adopted by Cabinet in 2018. At a continental level, the policy contributes to the Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative, which advances interconnectivity amongst African countries to address infrastructure deficit and boost intra-Africa trade,” the cabinet said.

The draft policy will be gazetted for public comment during the first quarter of 2021.

The new border policy comes in preparation for the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which will come into effect from 1 January 2021.

The AfCFTA aims to build an integrated market in Africa that will see a pool of over a billion people with a combined GDP of approximately US$3.3 trillion.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that the AfCFTA will increase intra-Africa trade from the current 10%-16% to approximately 52% by the year 2022.

Ramaphosa has said that through the trade area, the continent’s leaders are determined to build strong and inclusive economies through industrialisation and the beneficiation of the minerals and commodities.

“The AfCFTA is a significant development that will change trade patterns and has the potential to transform African economies,” he said in November.

“It will encourage economic diversification, beneficiation of our minerals and resources and value-addition to seize the opportunities arising from an increasingly open African continental market.

“We expect that in the new year, 2021, preferential trade in Africa will begin with significant product coverage and will be further expanded over the coming years,” he said.

Ramaphosa said that even prior to the agreement on the AfCFTA, South Africa had already begun implementing an investment-led trade strategy.

He said that the country has sought to use its outward foreign direct investment in the rest of the continent to encourage balanced growth and localisation.

Between 2014 and 2018, South African firms invested over $10 billion – around R160 billion – in different parts of the continent. This has made South Africa the fifth-largest source of foreign direct investment on the continent in value behind the US, France, UK and China.

“Government has been working to prepare South Africa-based firms for their participation in the AfCFTA,” he said.

“We want to ensure that our firms, entrepreneurs, small enterprises and workers benefit from the trading opportunities that will arise as the AfCFTA commences to operate.

www.samigration.com

Home affairs will be ‘tough-minded’ if fraud is proven, Michael Pezzullo tells Senate estimates

Michael Pezzullo says there is a criminal investigation into Daryl Maguire’s cash-for-visa scheme and if fraud is proven visas ‘will be cancelled’

Three Australians who received visas with the help of the disgraced former New South Wales Liberal MP Daryl Maguire could be stripped of their citizenship if it was obtained through fraud, the home affairs department chief has warned.

Michael Pezzullo made the threat in Senate estimates on Friday when he promised his department would be “tough-minded” if fraud was proven after a departmental and Australian Border Force investigation into the cash-for-visa scheme.

Maguire, who for years maintained a secret relationship with the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, admitted to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) in October that he received thousands of dollars in payments over the scheme he allegedly helped to run.

In estimates on Friday, the deputy secretary of immigration and settlement services, Andrew Kefford, revealed that of the 14 people Maguire helped obtain visas, nine are still in Australia and three now have Australian citizenship.

The shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, said in the hearing it was “extraordinary” that “three people became citizens when it appears, from Mr Maguire, that he fraudulently got them into Australia”.

“A Liberal member of parliament selling visas? And three people become citizens? What sort of border control is this?” she said. The chair of the legal and constitutional affairs committee, Coalition MP Amanda Stoker, warned that the alleged fraud hadn’t been proven in court.

Pezzullo said there were ongoing investigations but if visas were granted due to false credentials or fraudulent information “as a general principle they will be cancelled”.

The law also allows people to be stripped of their Australian citizenship and Pezzullo promised to “come down in a tough-minded way after we’ve done our processes”. Another official noted that the three became citizens before the investigation was opened on 8 October.

The cash-for-visa scheme is a key element of Icac’s investigation into allegations Maguire misused his position as an MP for his own financial gain.

The scheme allowed Australian employers to earn a subsidy for falsely employing Chinese nationals full-time so they could obtain a visa. Icac has heard a company Maguire “effectively” controlled received payments.

Maguire admitted in his evidence to Icac he knew the scheme involved lying to immigration officials.

In October, Pezzullo told estimates he believed that Maguire had made representations to the federal department over visa issues.

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