180710 Thijs van Hillegondsberg stands inside a police cell following his arrest by the Department of Home Affairs on June 18 for running a business illegally in South Africa Photograph Supplied 180710 Thijs van Hillegondsberg stands inside a police cell following his arrest by the Department of Home Affairs on June 18 for running a business illegally in South Africa Photograph Supplied
A Strand man locked in an 11-year struggle with Home Affairs to get permits to live and work in SA thought his troubles were over after Public Protector Thuli Madonsela stepped in.
She gave the department until May 24 to fix things – but that deadline came and went and now Thijs van Hillegondsberg is considering High Court action.
Netherlands-born Van Hillegondsberg runs a water-purifying business. He has been battling to get citizenship for himself, his wife and his son, despite being entitled to full citizenship for more than 11 years.
Having arrived in SA in 1996 with his wife, Patricia Poelman, and son Ludo, then 3, the couple adopted two SA children, Thembisa, now 17, and Johan, now 15, in 2001. Their ordeal began when they were forcibly repatriated to The Netherlands in 1999 after unsuccessful efforts to obtain residence permits and after an application for work permits was delayed.
Since 1999, he and his family have applied for work, temporary residence and study permits which have been granted and extended annually.
The family first complained to the Office of the Public Protector in 2001. It has passed through the hands of three different public protectors.
Former public protector Lawrence Mushwana wrote in 2006 to then Home Affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang about the delay.
When Mushwana’s Western Cape office failed to elicit a response, the deputy director-general was subpoenaed to explain the department’s failure to co-operate, but he failed to appear.
The excuse was that the deputy-director-general no longer worked for Home Affairs.
Later, the department denied the family had filed applications for permanent residence, saying they had refused to pay the required fees.
In 2010, Van Hillegondsberg approached Madonsela and asked her to take the investigation further.
Matters worsened when, in June 2010, Van Hillegondsberg and his wife were arrested for running a business illegally in SA. This was despite their applications being with the department and a verbal and written commitment from a senior official that any legal action would be stayed until after Madonsela’s probe.
Her spokeswoman
said on Friday that the public protector had received a phone call from Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to say remedial action would be taken.
Political Bureau