… As Ministry of Home Affairs amends the Immigration Act
BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE– EmaSwati should expect significant changes on Immigration laws.
Barely a week after the Ministry of Home Affairs officials joined heads with the Lesotho International Organisation of Migration (IOM), the ministry is holding a consultancy meeting to amend the Immigration Act of 1982.
The Department of Immigration in the Ministry of Home Affairs has today, started a two-day stakeholder consultancy meeting on the Immigration Bill of 2022 at SCOT in Mbabane.
The aim of the meeting is to educate stakeholders on the draft bill of 2022 with the intention to review the current Immigration Act of 1982.
The Communications Officer in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mlandvo Dlamini, said the Ministry was in the process of modifying its Immigration Laws, stating that the exercise last happened over 40 years ago.
“Times have changed and so should we, by modifying our policies,” said Dlamini.
When asked what changes should emaSwati expect with regards to Immigration laws, the Communications Officer said foreigners would now be awarded permanent residency in the country.
“That will be one major change. We have always offered non-emaSwati temporal residency or business permits. But now, we will award permanent residency to non-emaSwati, especially those that come to the country as investors or for purposes of business,” explained Dlamini.
He further said some changes will be seen at border gates and border posts, where there would be a lot of fingerprint and pupil scans for security.
About a week ago, we reported that a courtesy call by a task force team on migration management from Eswatini led by the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Nhlanhla Nxumalo, the said Ministry’s officers and the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) officers, embarked on a study tour in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho.
Revealing this information was the IOM Lesotho through a statement. IOM is the acronym for International Organisation for Migration.
“On their study tour, the Kingdom of Eswatini task force on migration management paid a courtesy call to the PS of Lesotho’s Ministry of Finance and Development Planning,” read the IOM Lesotho statement.
The statement also revealed that the purpose of the visit was to study exchanging experiences and best practices with Lesotho National Consultative Committee o Migration focusing on diaspora, labour migration, border management and counter-trafficking issues.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, through the Immigration Department, also hosted its first Migration Policy Development Project meeting, at the United Nations Building, in order to develop a well-managed national policy and comprehensive migration governance in the country.
The Ministry is in the process of undertaking Migration Profile Policy through technical support from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The meeting was opened by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) country representative Jeremias Isaias Pais Mendes. Mendes assured the IOM support for Eswatini Government and the Ministry in order to push a policy that will inform the Immigration Bill.
