FORMER Mpumalanga director general Coleman Nyathi has met with Home Affairs investigators in Pretoria in an attempt to head off a looming deportation order. Nyathi was forced to resign last week after Home Affairs hand delivered a letter warning he would be deported to Zimbabwe within 14 days unless he proved his South African citizenship. Nyathi has declined to publicly comment on the issue, but his attorney, Nathan Cheiman, confirmed on Tuesday that Nyathi would attempt to prove his citizenship and retain his South African residency. “We met with Home Affairs to try and bring some sanity to the situation. We have a lot of homework to do and I expect the process to take between three to six weeks,” said Cheiman. Cheiman dismissed initial reports that the citizenship of Nyathi’s unnamed wife was also being probed, saying neither Nyathi nor Home Affairs had broached the issue. Nyathi, who was praised as Mpumalanga’s most efficient director general yet, resigned unexpectedly on Thursday to “give myself room to sort this thing out”. He previously denied media and police reports that his citizenship was suspect, or that he may have lied about being an illegal Zimbabwean migrant to South Africa to qualify for the province’s most powerful administrative post. Mpumalanga police Aliens Control Unit commander, Captain David Chilembe, said it was “very strange” there was no official record of Nyathi’s parents or original family home in South Africa.