Fat chance of staying in New Zealand

A SOUTH African chef whom New Zealand authorities found to be too obese to stay in the country, has failed in his bid to become a Kiwi.

Albert Buitenhuis and his wife, Marthie, who moved to Christchurch in 2007, will return to South Africa this week.

In 2013 Buitenhuis made headlines around the world when he claimed his application for permanent residence status had been rejected because he was “too fat”. He weighed 130kg when he entered New Zealand. Even though he lost 31kg in the first six years, Immigration New Zealand’s medical assessors still considered him to be clinically obese for his height of 1.78m.

Earlier this month Buitenhuis tweeted: “#thefatcheff has to leave NZ. We’ll be flying back to SA on 29/12. Sad to leave NZ, happy that we’ll see family and friends again . . . soon.”

Buitenhuis and his wife have been fighting to stay in New Zealand for two years after an application to renew their work visas was first rejected because of his weight.

They won a 23-month reprieve — only to be denied again.

In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, Buitenhuis said their visa was finally declined and they had to stop working at the end of October.

“Their reasons for declining us this time were [that] I’m not seen as a bona fide worker and the employer did not do enough to get a Kiwi in the job,” said Buitenhuis.

In 2013 Immigration New Zealand cited the demands Buitenhuis’s obesity could place on the country’s health services and said medical assessors found he no longer “had an acceptable standard of health”.

In August 2013 Marthie wrote on her blog: “No one just packs up and leaves their home country without good reason, and if you were basically settled and made your intentions of staying permanently clear, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth to be told after 5+ years of working and paying tax, that you are not so important that New Zealand needs to treat you like a human being or show any form of humanity or compassion for you or what their decisions or actions mean to the applicant.

“In New Zealand we have jobs and lived fairly comfortably on not major incomes . . . We feel personally safe and don’t live in fear of crime or violence. We are expected to return to the very situation we wanted to escape. While South Africa is not seen as a war zone or in a situation that calls for asylum, I doubt the actual situation there is unknown to the authorities here.

“No country loses so many citizens as South Africa has done for no good reason. After being totally settled we are now expected to sell off what we have to return to a country that has swopped one discriminatory policy for another while the world is congratulating itself on dismantling the former . . .” ‘ESCAPE’ FOILED: Albert and Marthie Buitenhuis are on their way back to South Africa