By Farai Hove | An article circulated around the Zimbabwean community claiming that the South African government has reversed its decision to discontinue the Zimbabwe Presidential Exemption Permits.

This claim is untrue. The Chairperson of the Zimbabwean community in South African Nicholas Mabhena narrates this matter clarifying as at 2am Tuesday 14th December:

“Greetings everyone I have been just been reading online newspapers and … one gets to understand from journalists is the claim that the South African government has reversed its decision to discontinue the ZEP.

“On online media platforms, I find people celebrating that the decision by the South African cabinet not to renew the permits has been reversed, which is not true.

“Let’s get to understand this so that we do not mislead holders of the Zimbabwe exemption permit and also the problem is that in the world of social media, one of the challenges is that we rush to make announcements or we rush to scream out without understanding the directive or what is its meaning, and then will mislead the public.”

Mabhena spoke for over 20 minutes further revealing that nothing has changed. (Video below)

He said people should not be driven by what journalists say but by facts.

• ZimEye