The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) announced the policy shift following recent self-repatriation efforts by several nations amid ongoing South African protests against undocumented foreign nationals.

Over the past two years, South Africa has deported more than 100,000 undocumented foreign nationals, a massive logistical operation that has drained millions of rands from the national fiscus.

DIRCO spokesperson Chrispin Phiri, talking to SABC NEWS stated that the recent influx of country-led repatriations proves that foreign governments possess the resources to bring back their populations.

“Moving forward we will also be billing countries for their foreign nationals who have to be deported or who are in our criminal detention facilities and have to be deported back into their countries. At least now we can see that there’s capacity for countries to extract the foreign nationals who have fallen foul of the law. That’s something that through the department of home affairs we will pursue as a government,” added Phiri.