19 Mar 2023

Parliament has heard that 123 applications for long term permits were received from Ghanzi from January 2021 to December last year.

Answering a question in Parliament recently, Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Ms Annah Mokgethi said that meant on average the office received only five applications per month.

Minister Mokgethi also indicated that 32 applications were rejected during the same period while the ministry received 17 appeals out of which six were rejected and 11 approved.

“There were various reasons for rejection of work and residence permit applications and among these were failure to provide the required information and failure to pass security clearance as well as scoring below the cut-off point which stands at 60 per cent,” she explained.

The minister added that she was aware that currently Ghanzi applications for work and residence permits were received in the township and processed in Maun and sometimes in Francistown.

So far, she said the ministry had eight regional boards across the country, including Maun which was responsible for, among others, issuance of work and residence permits.

She said the Maun office experienced delays between September 2021 and March last year due to incomplete membership of the board, owing to retirement and transfers of some members.

“I wish to confirm that the situation has now normalised as Maun has a fully functional regional immigrants selection board, which resumed operations in March last year,” she said.

On other issues, the minister told Parliament that application for emergency work permits was a centralised function only done at head office in Gaborone, but applications were received from district offices across the country.

She indicated that Section 11 of the Immigration Act no 3 of 2011 empowered the minister to appoint members of the immigrants selection boards while Section 2 specified that the board shall consist of the district commissioner, police officer, a representative of the director, among others.

Also, she said currently the regional immigration and selection boards were based at regional offices, which Ghanzi was not one of.

Member of Parliament for Ghanzi North, Mr John Thiite had asked the minister if she was aware that applications for work, residence and emergency work permits from Ghanzi were processed at the Maun and Francistown offices, something he said caused delays in their issuance to investors and skilled expatriates, thus hindering growth of the economy and skills transfer to Batswana.

Mr Thiite also wanted to know the composition of regional boards that dealt with such applications in Maun or Francistown and whether such people were from Ghanzi District in 2021 or 2022.

He further wanted to know the number of applications rejected, appealed and upheld and reasons thereof.

The legislator also wanted to know recurring reasons for rejections, especially applications from investors. ends