Foreign nationals cry foul over vaccine roll-out

A large proportion of the estimated nearly four million foreign nationals, legal and illegal, in SA could be at risk of not being inoculated against Covid-19 as community fears and problems over paperwork keep them away from hospitals and vaccination sites.

Foreign nationals with documents can register on the electronic vaccine data system (EVDS), using their passports or refugee permits.

However, Shelton Chiyangwa, spokesperson for Zimbabwe Migration Support Network, an organisation representing Zimbabwean nationals in the country, claimed foreign nationals had been forgotten.

“The fact that we must have a South African identity document to complete the registration process meant the process excluded us,” he said.

“As an organisation that represented not only Zimbabweans but all other migrants, we are deeply worried because when we look at the statement made by the president about the roll-out of the vaccination, he said it would include all foreign nationals, documented and non-documented.”

In March, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on SABC the department would not be able to help foreign nationals who did not have the necessary documents to register.

“Those who are not documented, we are not able to deal with those because at the moment we would like to deal with people who are registered in some way in South Africa,” he said.

Jo Vearey, associate professor and director for African Centre for Migration & Society, said the lockdown was a huge part of why some foreign nationals were undocumented.

“That could include people with expired visas; people who had trouble with home affairs and waited for renewals, which were probably lost in the system, and tried to get their asylum applications sorted out since home affairs stopped operating during the hard lockdown.

“The department of home affairs, however, assured any permits that have expired since then will not face any penalties,” she said.

The professor said this was not a time for nationality or citizenship issues.

“Everyone must be vaccinated. Anyone left out would affect the effectiveness of the vaccination campaign.

“It is important everyone involved in the vaccination programme knows how important the campaign is. The urgent issue globally was to vaccinate people,” she said.

Mkhize’s spokesperson, Lwazi Manzi, said the department had plans in place for undocumented citizens.

“Undocumented foreign nationals will be vaccinated and we would announce how this will happen when we were ready.

“We partnered with UNAIDS to work on the advocacy so they don’t fear deportation when we vaccinate,” she added.

Kwara Kekana, the Gauteng MEC of health’s spokesperson, could not provide figures of foreign nationals who were vaccinated, but said they were eligible to be vaccinated if they had passports.