ZIMBABWE – Innscor Africa Limited (Innscor)’s newly-appointed South African chief executive (CE), Antonio Fourie, is yet to secure a Zimbabwean work permit.
Fourie told Business Live last week that he submitted the required papers to Zimbabwe’s Immigration Department and was waiting for the processing of the work permit.
Foreigners are required to have a permit to work or be employed in Zimbabwe.
Fourie was appointed Innscor CE on October 17, 2014, following the listed group’s restructuring exercise. Prior to that, the former Ellerines South Africa boss was recruited in 2013 as consultant to Innscor’s board.
He said “the Immigration office has assured me the papers would be ready soon.
“The process has been a long one and it’s mainly because of the paperwork involved in the process, for starters, you have to submit a Police Clearance Certificate from your parent country, which takes anything between eight to 10 weeks to get here in South Africa,” said Fourie.
He said there has been no delays in the process, but “it’s just a thing with immigration departments; they want to be very thorough. However, they have all the documents in the system so it is now just a matter of time”.
In the meantime, Zimbabwe’s Immigration Department assistant regional officer, Francis Mabika, said work permits normally take six weeks to process.
“Issues to do with permits are not absolute or universal, but they differ from individual to individual, however, the general period to obtain a permit is between six and seven weeks.”
“The reason this process takes long is there are many documents that have to be submitted and the vetting is particularly long and thorough.
Documents like police clearance reports have to be handed in and vetted,” Mabika said. Currently, Fourie reportedly commutes between South Africa and Zimbabwe three times a week to run the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-quoted group.
January 26, 2015; http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2015/01/26/innscor-boss-yet-to-secure-zim-work-permit
