The Story of Mr Gibson Tawodzera and the Politics of Immigration – Injustice Rectified

Mutumwa Mawere, 19/12/2020

Today at exactly 12:45am, Ms. Miriam Mutizwa, a member of both the Banking on Africa’s Future (BOAF) – 10000 Points of Light (POL) and C2C initiatives shared in various platforms powered by the 1873 Network a tweet authored by Mr Siphosami Malunga.

Malunga who is an author also works as the Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).

He concludes that injustice was rectified in relation to the order by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria for the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to allow Gibson Tawodzera back into the country.

Mr Tawodzera is a Zimbabweans citizen who was declared an illegal alien by South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs on account of allegations that his residency permit was fraudulent and as such invalid.

He is not alone to be targeted for deportation on the basis of alleged fraud in relation to documents establishing the legality or otherwise of immigration of so-called foreigners at the core of this mindset which automatically makes most foreign-born human beings deemed to be fraudsters for simply choosing South Africa as the next place to prosecute the enterprise of life.

Like Ms. Mutizwa, I am also a member of the 1873 Network and identity is one of our focal points to provoke, ignite and inspire active citizenship and raise awareness of the urgency and need of civics literacy.

Identity Politics (IP) is a term that describes a tribal approach wherein people are categorized into groups i.e. foreign and natives and using citizenship as an identifier proceed to political and social agendas that inform public policies that undermine the rule of law and constitutionalism.

Deportation is one of the instruments often used to subtract through oppressive measures the number of persons identified as foreign.

Having been a resident and citizen of South Africa since 1995, I also have stories to tell about what it means to be on the opposite side of the artificial human divide.

I was provoked to write this article to provoke conversations on the state of play in relation to the weaponization of immigration powers in limiting and qualifying the promises of democracy and constitutionalism to all.

The advent of Covid19 and the high profile cases of persons like Bushiri have combined to undermine the promise.

People are living in real fear that if arrested on domestic violence, for example, a person could easily be deported on account of immigration papers which at the discretion of Home Affairs officers can easily be deemed to fake leaving the Courts with no discretion but to order the person to be deported.

The Tawodzera case is one of many similar cases that have ruined the lives of law abiding persons in South Africa.

A case was brought to the attention of C2C Initiative in October 2020 following the arrest of Mr Brighton Chifamba in relation to allegations that his former employer, Setheo Engineering Pty Limited (SETHEO).

Setheo is a company that was a party to a valid contract to upgrade the Eldorado Park Substation for R143 million, was implicated in a fraud involving payments of R66 million in progress payments in relation to this turnkey contract.

It is true and fact that the former Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Mr Herman Mashaba, a former director of Concor, a company that was also a service provider to the City of Johannesburg was a competitor to Setheo.

The only difference is that unlike Concor, Setheo was deemed by Mashaba to be a foreign owned company and as such the contract was invalid ab initio.

Mashaba then proceeded to create a substitute for the South African Police Service (SAPS) that he called Group Forensic and Investigations Services (GFIS) that is headed by Brigadier Shadreck Sibiya, the former head of the Hawks I’m Gauteng.

GFIS was given by Mashaba the powers that are ordinarily reserved for the national police service including powers to be a substitute complainant based on Investigations that offends the prescripts of the law and constitution.

As a result of his direct driving force, two directors of Setheo and two low level employees of City Power were arrested in 2017 but the charges were withdrawn.

In order to clothe the allegations aimed at exposing and flushing foreign undesirable elements, Mashaba clothed his gangster attacks as if they were aimed at addressing the corruption scourge created by the ANC-led administration that preceded the DA-led one that he headed in the City of Johannesburg.

Notwithstanding the fact that he is no longer Mayor, he has continued his fight to establish a conviction against Setheo actors on the premise that the findings by GFIS ought to be final because he has no confidence in the NPA being able to successfully prosecute the self-created crime.

What is shocking is that on 12 October 2020, Mr Chifamba was arrested on the same charges that were preferred against the four Individuals.

Unknown to Chifamba, the immigration weapon was used to deny him bail. An officer of the Department of Home Affairs testified in court that the entry stamp on Chifamba’s passport dated 25 March 2020 was fraudulent.

The court accepted his version and denied him bail on account of the fact that if the stamp was fake, he was illegally in the country.

How does one determine based on papers that a stamp is fake? The Magistrate reversed the onus of proof to the accused based on the evidence submitted to the Court that for a stamp to be valid, it needed to be endorsed at the port of entry which was Beitbridge.

It is the case that Chifamba entered South Africa on 6 March 2020 under the Zimbabwe visa exemption that allows for free entry and stay of up to 6 months per year.

In terms of the dispensation, he was required to leave the country to avoid him staying continuously for the 90 days and he did leave on 25 March and returned on 26 March as shown on the stamps in his passport.

Chifamba has a wife and two children staying in South Africa and so when the NPA was asked to comment on the case and the arrest of Chifamba, the spokesperson said that more arrests are imminent.

The lawyer representing Chifamba is on record saying that the strategy of the NPA is to use the immigration card to get Chifamba to turn state witness against the directors of the company and as such he is being used as a bridge to injustice.

Chifamba has been denied bail consistently and against this backdrop, his lawyer procured a stamp dated September 2020 from undisclosed DHA officials in order to meet the test that the Court set that Chifamba must prove that he is lawfully in the country.

The Court was informed that all visas that were valid at the time the lockdown was declared are valid until 31 January 2021.

The Court refused to take this into account in denying Chifamba bail.

As a consequence, Chifamba is still languishing in prison for a crime he did not commit and could not have committed. It is instructive that the complainant in the Setheo matter is not City Power but the City Of Johannesburg.

This is not a reality story but a factual account of a real story being prosecuted by Mashaba outside the four corners of legality but using state organs to punish what he terms foreign and corrupt friends of the ANC.

Silence against tyranny is the greatest betrayal. There are many victims of these abuses who choose to be silent yet the reality is that things are not well.

No one is safe when the justice system is wantonly weaponized to persecute innocent people.