Batswana in panic dive for 'working' passport

MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE
Staff Writer | Friday June 11, 2010 00:00

South Africa threw Botswana into confusion last week when no Botswana residents using the old passports - non-machine readable passports - were allowed into that country on Thursday and Friday, immigration sources in South Africa confirmed to Mmegi.

Immigration officials at Kopfontein border posts have admitted denying Botswana old passport holders entry for two days until the immigration officials from Botswana intervened, but Botswana's Ministry of Labour and Home affairs, under which the Department of Immigration falls, denies ever intervening in the problem which, they say, never existed at all.

According to South African immigration officials at Kopfontein, desperate measures by the government of Botswana led to the banning of the old Botswana passports. They said Botswana has until July to switch to the electronic passports.However the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs yesterday denied Botswana's old passports were rejected last week, saying the passports remain legal until 2011.

Mmegi has been inundated with phone calls from angry and frustrated Botswana passport holders, who claim they tried to cross into South Africa at the Kopfontein and Martins-Drift border posts over the weekend, only to be turned away on the South African side because they did not have machine-readable passports.

Mmegi investigations this week at the Kopfontein border, near Tlokweng, revealed that the South African control system does not have any problems with ETDs from South Africa and Zambia because they conform to their newly upgraded border control system adopted by South Africa three months ago.

Officials at the South African immigration and border control told the Mmegi team that they reject the Botswana ETD because it is just a one page document that does not conform to the border control system which, they say, requires the ETD to have a minimum of four pages.Botswana maintains its ETD conforms to the international requirements. Immigration sources in South Africa told Mmegi that Botswana's ETD would be waived only in medical emergencies.The South African immigration officers also revealed that while they will continue to accept Botswana's old passports, they will give preference to holders of the e-passports.

The Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs in Gaborone maintain that the old passports remain operational for entry into South Africa until 2011 saying travellers should not panic.

Nevertheless, the rush at Immigration headquarters in Gaborone yesterday painted a picture of a desperate situations as many Botswana passport holders jammed the offices in a bid to apply for the electronic passports, clearly having lost confidence in the old passports. Investigations yesterday unearthed scores of Botswana passport holders who claimed they were hurrying to get express services to switch to the e-passports in one day.

Mmegi also observed that the notice by the Botswana government regarding South Africa's rejection of Botswana's ETDs has not reached many people. Some holders of the new document said they only learnt upon trying to cross the border that the ETDs are now obsolete.

A manager at the Kopfontein border post told Mmegi that Botswana was notified that South Africa will not recognise the old passport with effect from the beginning of June.  She added that South Africa's decision to reject Botswana's old passport last week was as a result of this arrangement although she said the problem persisted for only two days.

The Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs says the notice applied only to the ETDs and not to the old passports.  However, unofficial enquiries with a variety of officers at the Department of Immigration in Gaborone yesterday revealed that they have been aware that South Africa would not be accepting Botswana's old passports from June.  Asked to say whether South Africa will continue to   recognise Botswana passports after the confusion that reigned last week, a senior immigration said: 'My understanding is that Botswana has now committed to having its residents switch to the new machine-readable passports by July, 2010.  'I do not really know what they are going to do with it, but we will give preference to e-passports holders, because our new border control system recognises only the e-passports'.

The Botswana's Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs sources say there has been no such arrangement with South Africa, insisting that the old passports remain in operational until 2011.