Malawi has since 1994 been losing about $56 million [about K56 billion] every year in unpaid annual Business Resident Permits (BRP) by foreign nationals who have been posing as refugees while conducting businesses in communities.
Foreign nationals seeking to conduct business in the country are required to pay a BRP fee of about $7,000 [about K7 million].
However, Homeland Security Minister Ken Zikhale Ng’oma said 51,000 foreign nationals who have been staying and doing business in local communities outside Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa District have not been paying the fees under the pretext that they are refugees.
His sentiments come at a time the Government of Malawi has been repatriating refugees from towns and cities back to Dzaleka Refugee Camp, the official home of refugees and asylum seekers.
Over the weekend, Zikhale Ng’oma engaged senior police officers in the South West Division in Blantyre, where he reiterated the government’s stance on the exercise.
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Zikhale Ng’oma told the commanding officers that, apart from being a threat to national security, refugees living and plying their trade outside Dzaleka Refugee Camp have for many years eroded the country’s economy.
“Some of these so called refugees have been using Malawi to clean their ill-gotten money from elsewhere. You must be surprised that some of these refugees have hundreds of containers of various commodities. How can a refugee have thousands of United States dollars?
“As such, this [relocation] exercise is very important because we want to differentiate refugees from other foreign nationals who are here to do business,” Zikhale Ng’oma said.
He then said Malawi had clarified its position on the repatriation exercise to various organisations including the United Nations refugee agency.
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“They now understand and support this whole exercise,” he said.
In his remarks, Deputy Commissioner of Police for the South West Division Mavuto M’bobo said the service continues to face some challenges in exercising its mandate of serving and protecting Malawians.
“Shortage of vehicles, uniforms and housing are some of the challenges that officers continue to face,” M’bobo told the minister during the meeting.
