Staggering challenge ahead for South Africa

Busnesstech - 18 October 2022

When finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, delivers his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) towards the end of the month, he will need to focus on policies that accelerate real economic growth and address the financial future of Eskom, say wealth management specialists at Citadel.

Maarten Ackerman, chief economist at Citadel, says all eyes will be on Godongwana to see if he will prioritise pragmatic policies that stimulate real business growth and job creation, instead of bowing to populist pressures that prioritise social spending but have no lasting positive impact on the country.

“South Africa is still stuck in a balancing act between weak growth and populist needs that will continue indefinitely, such as the Basic Income Grant,” said Ackerman. As a country, it is vital that South Africa gets the economy going to address poverty and inequality in a sustainable way.

“In terms of South Africa’s macro-economic outlook, it’s essential to note that there was yet another revenue windfall in addition to the revenue overruns in recent years. So, we’ll need to see what the finance minister does with that. We’d like to see the windfalls being used productively – not just on once-off, temporary social spending that does little to nothing to drive economic growth,” the economist said.

From an investment perspective, Citadel’s chief investment officer, George Herman, urges Godongwana to address the Eskom situation. “We would appreciate any guidance the finance minister can give in terms of the intention to de-leverage the Eskom balance sheet. I think and hope that is going to be a core focus of the 2022 MTBPS,” said Herman.

Eskom has requested that the government relieve its debt balance sheet of approximately R200 billion, while recently informing the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that it was carrying a total debt burden of approximately R400 billion, which could not be serviced due to its current cashflows and liquidity problems.

It was also facing outstanding municipal debt to the tune of around R40 billion.

It was recently reported that Eskom expects to receive tranches of R20 billion of taxpayers’ money over the next few years to deal with its debt-servicing commitments, much to the dismay of taxpayers who are already paying for a service they are not fully receiving as a result of the rolling blackouts, which have recently escalated.

In 2021, Citadel also expressed the hope that the minister would be prudent and use the opportunity presented by additional revenue to get the country out of its “very tight fiscal position”. At the time, Ackerman said: “If we don’t get the economy going very soon, we might have some further fiscal challenges in the next two to three years.” Today, fiscal reform is still a great priority.

Colin Coleman, the former MD of Goldman Sachs in Sub-Saharan Africa, told BusinessLive that the budget is about more than making the numbers look good for the ratings agencies. “It’s about how we’re breaking out of our structural constraints and problems.”

“Yes, the benefit of fiscal consolidation is to reduce the cost of capital to increase investment, but that’s an insufficient condition for investment,” he said.

Coleman stressed that the budget also needs to address the “festering sore” that includes unemployment, lawlessness, corruption, public mismanagement, and the country’s structural low-growth issue.

Deep structural woes at Eskom

Intellidex chair, Stuart Theobald said that South Africans know that the country is deeply rooted in an energy crisis, but may not understand the staggering challenge that lies ahead of it.

The analyst noted this past week that, based on outdated estimates in the country’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan, it will need to procure and develop approximately 78,000 MW of energy capacity by 2030.

By 2035, however, 12 of Eskom’s 15 coal plants will have retired, wiping 33,000MW from the grid. If an optimistic plan by the government to get newer stations like Medupi and Kusile fully operational and the lifetime of Koeberg is extended, this means that South Africa needs to get at least 50,000MW of new energy on-grid over the next 12 years, Theobald said.

This is a ‘stupifying’ amount of energy required, he said, and South Africa faces an incredible challenge on two key fronts: cost and politics.

On the former, the Intellidex chair said that even leaning into cheaper energy technologies like renewables will carry immense costs.

“Solar photovoltaic and onshore wind is now much cheaper than fossil fuel production, but you need storage to even out supply capacity. Based on current global capital costs for different types of technologies, we need to invest R1.8 trillion to R3 trillion to build that capacity, depending on technology spread,” he said.

“And that doesn’t even consider the investment required to expand the grid to handle the volumes.”

The analyst noted that this cost is staggering – accounting for up to half of South Africa’s entire GDP, and even spread over 10 years, is equivalent to the total spend of a Medupi every year.

On top of the cost, South Africa’s energy sector also has to deal with the other massive hurdle: the government.

Theobald noted that the country is awaiting the results of a 9,600GW energy bid window, but historically, politics and generally poor management of procurement have delivered very little.

Urgent procurement of 2,000MW of energy ended up delivering only 150MW, and the most recent bid window saw only three projects – out of 25 – deliver, totalling 420MW. The analyst said that the country has managed to deliver only 1,400MW of new energy over the last few years.

Meeting the challenge

While the challenge appears insurmountable, Eskom itself is quite optimistic that it is able to meet it.

Presenting at the Africa Renewable Energy Investment Summit in September, Eskom chief executive officer Andre de Ruyter outlined the group’s strategy to tackle the new generation problem, emphasising a strong focus on renewables as the way forward.

Compared to coal, renewable projects like wind and solar farms cost less to build, can come online in less than two years, and can ensure that the country can protect its power exports amid rising carbon tariffs, he said.

In contrast, new coal builds would come at double or even quadruple the cost, take up to 12 years to complete – which would result in even more load shedding – and would put 46% of South Africa’s exports at risk as the country would fail to decarbonise.

By the end of 2024, de Ruyter said that most of the 33,000MW shortfall caused by the decommissioning of power stations will be covered by new projects, including:

• 3,500MW from the Seriti renewables projects
• 1,440MW from Kusile entering full operation
• 2,000MW from independent power producers (IPPs) on leased land
• 3,500MW from new pumped storage
• 1,500MW from municipal procurement
• 2,600MW from REIPPP 5 projects
• 5,200MW from REIPPP 6 projects
• 7,000+MW from other projects

This energy shift is not cheap, however, with the CEO pointing out that R1.2 trillion will be needed to realise the transition.

Adding firm capacity of 7,000MW, variable capacity from renewables totalling 50,000MW and storage capacity of 10,000MW will cost approximately R990 billion to realise by 2035, he said.

Expanding and strengthening the power utility’s transmission network over 8,000km of new lines and installing 101 new substations will cost another R130 billion. Boosting the distribution capacity will add another R56 billion to the mix.

Meeting demand for economic growth

Eskom can’t meet demand and has imposed a record number of days of blackouts so far in 2022, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Load-shedding is projected to shave 1 percentage point off economic growth this year. The South African Reserve Bank lowered its gross domestic product growth forecast to 1.9% from 2% in September.

Reforms aimed at alleviating South Africa’s energy crisis could raise real private investment in the energy sector by as much as 15% per year from 2023 to 2025 and raise economic growth by about 0.9 percentage points over the first year, the central bank said.

“Investment in energy has the potential to crowd in other productive investment, creating a virtuous cycle,” the bank said in its six-monthly Monetary Policy Review, as reported by Bloomberg.

www.samigration.com

 

 

SARS introducing new ‘travel pass’ for everyone entering or leaving South Africa

Businesstech  - 18 October 2022

 

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) says it will introduce an ‘online traveller declaration system’ that all travellers need to comply with.

The new system will simplify passenger movement at South African airports, SARS said, and will come into effect from 1 November 2022.

The system aims to collect travel information and, in return, grants a traveller pass via email, said SARS.

It requires that all travellers – including South African citizens and residents, children and infants – leaving or entering South Africa by air complete the declaration. SARS said that once completed and submitted, travellers will receive a pass before they board.

The new online system will be rolled out in all South African international airports, starting with OR Tambo International Airport from 1 November, and then to others in the first quarter of 2023, the revenue service said.

“Upon arrival in South Africa, there will be instructions at the airports that will guide and inform travellers what to do next,” it said.

Currently, in terms of the declaration of goods at the airport, all people who arrive in the country are required to complete a Traveller Card (TC-01) if they have something to declare – the card is then used alongside your passport in the customs process.

Some goods that are required to be declared include things such as:

• Products purchased or acquired abroad
• Goods remodelled or repaired abroad
• Anything prohibited or restricted, or controlled under any law

When departing from South Africa, residents are further required by SARS to register valuables before their trip – this can be done at the customs office in international departures before handing luggage in.

However, tourists to South Africa can reclaim Value-Added Tax (VAT) on the goods bought during their visit to the country, added SARS.

SARS has been beefing up its tax policy and working with other institutions to ensure stricter compliance with tax law. The latest Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) annual report showed that over R41.6 million in penalties was imposed by SARS on certain people and businesses over 2021 – many of which were instances of non-compliance.

SARS has a history of keeping tabs on taxpayers. In mid-September, Tax Consulting SA noted that the taxman can track a person’s flights as part of stricter emigration processes.

Nikolas Skafidas, a tax expert from the group said that expatriate taxpayers awaiting approval for their non-resident status might have their flights tracked into and out of South Africa by the tax authority.

He said that flight details could possibly be used by SARS when questioning the validity of an applicant’s claim that they intend to reside outside of South Africa permanently.

                  www.samigration.com

 

The issue of migrant workers could have serious implications for 2024 elections

Fin24 – 16 Feb 2022

 

For South African political parties grappling with the idea of coalition politics ahead of 2024, the issue of migrant workers may be the most crucial of all deliberations, says Khaya Sithole. 

Just over 30 years ago this month during an interview on Larry King Live, Ross Perot decided to put up his hand and run for the US presidency.

Perot's profile as a billionaire who was not part of the Washington establishment but simply wanted to change the way the establishment worked, had significant consequences for the 1992 elections and, as it turned out, for the 2016 US election campaign.

At the heart of Perot's message, was the idea that the other contenders – George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, were too entrenched in the establishment to actually fix it.

As it turned out, that election campaign coincided with the ongoing deliberations around the trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada. The most contentious points related to the impact of the proposed agreement on US jobs.

As the US labour market had evolved over time and offered various protections and guaranteed to workers, the labour force of Mexico had little in the way of such protections. The question of whether freeing up the trade border would create an incentive for US businesses to shift their operations across the Mexico, was the most polarising element of the debate.

One the one hand, the view was that globalism and globalisation rather than protectionism, are always good things that the US needed to champion. The predicted positive effects of the proposed agreement – the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – included a turbocharging of trade activity across the three nations.

The unknown variable was whether the integration of trade partners with such vastly different profiles – the US and Canada on one side and Mexico on the other side, would not lead to a one-way exodus of jobs in the direction of Mexico in pursuit of lower production costs.

The presidential contenders also took a bite at trying to crystallise the impact of NAFTA. Clinton – who would eventually emerge as the winner of the election in November 1992 – predicted that NAFTA would result in an export boom for Mexico and that could generate up to 200 000 additional jobs by 1995 and a million jobs within the first five years of the agreement.

Bush – dealing with the aftermath of the Gulf War and the declining economic prospects of the US economy facing increasing unemployment, was far less decisive on the NAFTA question. Perot used the first presidential debate to predict that NAFTA would result in a giant sucking sound of jobs moving southward to Mexico.

The predictions of each of the candidates were not altogether accurate. As the trade borders opened up, one of the fundamental risks – that Mexican wages would remain low rather than rise up to US standards - became a persistent reality.

That on its own stifled the ability of the Mexican economy to grow. The automobile sector in particular, which has always been the bedrock of the North American economies, provided the most granular insights into the effect of NAFTA.

At the end of 2016, the Centre for Automotive Research estimated that 55% of light vehicles produced in Mexico were for the US market. This implied that automotive manufacturers had indeed used NAFTA as the basis for shifting some production capacity across to Mexico.

The Economic Policy Institute predicted that over 700 000 US workers were displaced by the implementation of the NAFTA agreement – with Mexican workers the primary beneficiaries of this displacement.

Regrettably, Mexican wages remained low and hence the predicted rise in wages for Mexican workers did not materialise.

Such variables were important many years after Perot's presidential run, when Donald Trump promised to withdraw from NAFTA if he were to be elected.

Trump's narrative centred on the fact that those US workers who had lost jobs in the automotive sector could simply identify NAFTA as the original source of their plight and resultant plague of unemployment.

For communities dependent on the automotive sector, such sentiments resonated strongly and materially influenced the election of Trump. The crux of Trump's presidency was using xenophobic overtones regarding Mexicans in order to push for a revision of NAFTA.

That process consumed the bulk of his presidency and was eventually finalised at the beginning of 2020, which turned out to be the valedictory year of his presidency.

The tensions between trade, politics and labour migration have become a topical issue in South Africa in recent months.

As luck would have it, it was the involvement of a multimillionaire businessman in national politics that reignited the debate. Herman Mashaba – who previously served as mayor of Johannesburg under a DA ticket, launched a new political party, Action SA, ahead of the local government elections.

A key message of the campaign, and something Mashaba had championed during his time at City Hall, was the need to deal with illegal immigration in South Africa. The profile of immigrants in South Africa remains a poorly understood picture for various reasons.

Firstly, the porous nature of our borders, where the question of financial resources is the decisive factor between accessing South Africa or not, makes it remarkably difficult to get an accurate assessment of the profile of immigrant citizens.

When former finance minister Tito Mboweni tweeted in April 2020 that "almost 100% of restaurant workers were foreigners", it ignited heated debates across the Twitter sphere. Obviously, his calculation was completely wrong, but crucially, when Africa Check sough to get a more accurate picture of the prevalence of foreign workers in that sector, it concluded that while the number of foreign-born workers in the restaurant sector had been as high as 11.3% in 2011, that number had declined to just 6.5% by 2017.

Secondly, the immediate problem with the assessment of foreign workers in the restaurant industry is that it relies on the type of disclosures that are not universally practised – especially in relation to undocumented workers and migrants.

While Africa Check cites Statistics South Africa as the primary source of the data, it is unavoidable to note that workers who are not documented are unlikely to voluntarily participate in any data-gathering exercise for fear of reprisals.

Similarly for employers who have undocumented immigrants on staff, such disclosures are likely to be seen as self-defeating. As a result, we known that the number exists somewhere in the spectrum of Mboweni's hyperbole and Africa Check's conclusions.

The bigger problem in South Africa is the fact that just like in the US automotive sector, some sectors do indeed experience a higher prevalence of foreign workers – both documented and undocumented – that participate in the economic value chain. This is where anecdotal observations and empirical facts intersect – often with conflicting interpretations.

For a young person unable to access an economic opportunity, observing non-South Africans occupying those jobs can elicit curiosity that often mutates to resentment. This is worsened where the country's policy around migration and foreign workers is poorly understood.

Industries characterised by lax compliance with labour laws, provide a fertile ground for both workers and employers who wish to evade the net of scrutiny, to continuously practice policies that are not aligned to the laws of the land.

Within the economic value chain, sectors like the hospitality sector, where the definition of a job may be an ad-hoc assignment that requires little in the way of formal documentation, are likely to experience such realities more acutely than highly regulated sectors.

This creates a possibility that the anecdotal experiences of citizens on the ground – whether they feel more foreigners are competing with them for jobs or any other contention – are unlikely to be validated by empirical data as evidenced in the case study of the restaurant sector.

The use of tested data – which simply suggests that the issue is exaggerated - does little to quell the tensions of those living with the daily squeeze of displacement.

The unavoidable effect is the increased tensions across society. At the end of 2021, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced that the Zimbabwean exemption permits would be coming to an end.

Naturally, such an announcement generated hysteria and panic among those affected. To some, the minister seemed to be getting on the anti-immigration bandwagon that Mashaba was accused of championing.

Surprisingly, that seemed to miss the crucial tenets of Mashaba's stance and that of the EFF under Julius Malema. In Mashaba's utterances, the distinction between legal and illegal immigration is the pivot point.

The anecdotal evidence – which resonates with many property owners whose buildings may have been hijacked by individuals both foreign and local; and inner-city citizens who feel that there is a significant presence of foreigners in their midst - is that there is an immigration problem.

On the other end of the spectrum, the EFF's position on open borders is derided as an invitation to further displacement for South African workers. Both interpretations seem to be straying from the central essence of what the two parties – admittedly led by leaders whose articulation capacity on the issue are clearly problematic – are trying to actually say.

For Action SA, the idea of regularising immigrants is something that even Motsoaledi has championed since his days as health minister. In his previous role, Motsoaledi lamented the inability to allocate resources adequately across the health ecosystem, when one is unable to predict utilisation of such facilities.

Given the constitutional requirements around access to healthcare and the Hippocratic oath itself, a health system is likely to suffer the most acute effects of the impact of undocumented immigrants who cannot be denied access to healthcare facilities. Similarly, when buildings are hijacked, both by local and foreign hijackers, steps to correct that are indeed sensible.

The instinctive reaction to brand the Action SA approach as xenophobic serves little to advance the debate. Rather, it is seen as a tool for shutting down the conversation entirely.

The problem with tha, is that there are far too many citizens whose experiences of the system resonate with the issues Action SA seeks to raise. Its electoral performance in the 2021 local government elections indicates what some sections of the electorate are persuaded by the party's stance on illegal immigration.

The EFF, on the other hand, suffers from the effects of the disconnect between its stance and the actual reality of labour migration patterns and the country's policy on migration. The idea of opening up borders among trade partners is not actually an invention of Malema himself. Rather, it is a reflection of practices across the different trade blocs in the world. The European Union's open border policy is an example of this.

The fundamental flaw in the EFF's pronouncements is that in the absence of a clear trade policy across neighbouring states that defines the purpose and regulations, calling for open borders is premature.

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement is an example of an economic policy that seeks to gradually reduce trade barriers across the continent at large. The idea that the movement of citizens in the long run will follow the same pattern, is not altogether far-fetched.

But for as long as South Africa has an employment crisis, any idea that increases possibilities of displacement for local citizens is simply untenable politically.

A common response to the current crisis is that the deportation of one does not create a job for another. That of course shifts the debate on to the known reality that there aren't enough jobs to begin with.

However, the displacement question – where those out of the jobs net feel their chances would be improved if there were fewer foreigners, particularly undocumented ones, to compete with – needs to be addressed rather than dismissed.  

Since Motsoaledi's announcement on Zimbabwe exemption permits (ZEPs), accusations of xenophobia and Afrophobia have escalated. The point that seems to have been missed is that the very origination of the permits was not a result of a committed policy to enable easier labour migration across the two countries.

Rather, it became yet another cop-out by the government of the day that found it easier to regularise the many Zimbabwean citizens who had been displaced by the political turmoil of the late 2000s; rather than condemn the Mugabe regime for having created the crisis.

The sobering reality is that no clear policy balancing the social, economic and political considerations of the ZEP regime was cogently crafted. As a result, the various administrations have perpetually renewed the permits with the hope that the tension points would organically disappear.

Unfortunately for South Africa, that model is no longer tenable and difficult conversations around how to manage to effects of the rising tensions between disaffected citizens fearing continuous displacement, and the immigrants seeking a better future for themselves, are now overdue.

The political implications of getting this conversation right are not without precedent. At the end of the 1992 US presidential elections, Perot emerged with the best third-man performance in US elections since Roosevelt 80 years earlier.

His 19% poll resulted in neither of the main candidates receiving a majority of the ballot. For South African political parties grappling with the idea of coalition politics ahead of 2024, this is just one of the key conversations they need to address.

Given its polarising nature, it may be the most crucial of all deliberations ahead of 2024, particularly if the current administration does little to address the jobs crisis.  

www.samigration.com

 

 

 

Critical skills list: Government got it wrong, says expert

City Press – 18-02-2022

 

Government’s approach to prioritising the employment of South Africans has come under fire.

Centre for Development and Enterprise executive director Ann Bernstein, says government is tackling the topic of critical skills and employment in the wrong way. Bernstein says South Africa is a country that is desperate for growth, with a shortage of skilled people, entrepreneurs, university lecturers and maths teachers.

“We are not a country where we just have a shortage for one or two things.” Bernstein said: 

To spend an inordinate amount of time just to determine whether we need sheep shearers or business process managers is ridiculous.

“It’s not like skilled people are desperate to get into the country. We should be actively going out in the world looking for people with skills.”

The critical question is which skilled people does South Africa not want?

On Friday, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi gazetted the updated critical skills list in terms of Section 19(4) of the Immigration Act.

It outlines the skills most needed in the country and stipulates that: “Subject to any prescribed requirements, a critical skills work visa may be issued by the director-general to an individual possessing such skills or qualifications determined to be critical.”

The Immigration Act provides for the department of home affairs to regulate the “admission of foreigners to, their residence in, and their departure from the republic and for matters connected therewith must ensure that the South African economy has access at all times to the full measure of needed contributions by foreigners and that the contribution of foreigners in the South African labour market does not adversely impact on existing labour standards and the rights and expectations of South African workers”.

The update comes after Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi raised concerns last month about the hiring of foreign nationals who were in the country illegally and “illicit recruitment practices”.

Nxesi announced that they had developed a new national labour migration policy and proposed amendments to the existing Employment Services Act.

The labour department said the changes were made to help address the country’s population expectations regarding access to work for South Africans, “given the worsening unemployment and perception or views that foreign nationals, especially those who are undocumented, are distorting labour market access.”

The changes include an updated critical skills list and plans to introduce quotas on the number of foreign nationals who can be employed in certain sectors.

According to Stats SA, the country is currently experiencing the highest unemployment rates since the 2008. Youngsters aged 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 recorded the highest unemployment numbers of 66.5% and 43.8%, respectively.

But Bernstein said the changes might do more harm than good.

What South Africa needs to do with the millions of unemployed people, the vast majority of whom are young people, is to create a fast-growing and labour-intensive economy.

“We have to change the economy and make the hard decisions so that we become attractive to investors, and some parts of our labour laws so that employers actually want to hire people, not constrained by all sorts of red tape.”

Bernstein says the country needs to enable small business to get going without a whole lot of regulation and unemployed young people to get into the work force as fast as possible at a lower level than other people.

National Youth Development Agency CEO Waseem Carrim says the role of the critical skills list is to ensure that the country brings in the skills its needs to grow but balance that with employing the skills that exist.

“We have participated in and support the process of the critical skills list – a key component of economic growth is leveraging of the skills to take advantage of global opportunities.” Carrim said:

South Africa produces leading graduates and these graduates should be prioritised for employment opportunities.

 

www.samigration.com

 

 

How South Africans sell their identities to foreigners for just R500

The Citizen – 13 October 2022

29 suspects were arrested on Thursday for alleged fraud, corruption, contravention of the Immigration Act and possession of suspected fraudulent documents.

A multi-disciplinary operation involving the Hawks’ Serious Organised Crime Investigation, cash-in-transit task team, Department of Home Affairs’ Anti-Corruption, and Johannesburg Central Tactical Response Team, has resulted in the arrest of 29 suspects for alleged fraud, corruption, contravention of the Immigration Act and possession of suspected fraudulent documents on Thursday.

The suspects were arrested on Thursday evening at the Home Affairs office in Krugersdorp, following intelligence received regarding the fraudulent passport allegations countrywide.

According to Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Friday, the arrested kingpin and his syndicate had been operating in South Africa’s six provinces, excluding the Northern Cape, Free State and North West.

The scam is allegedly mostly done by Pakistani and Somali citizens, said Motsoaledi.

How South Africans were involved

“What they do is, they recruit foreign nationals who need South African passports but don’t deserve them because they’re here illegally. Then they recruit a corrupt Home Affairs official. At night, the Home Affairs official opens the offices. They bring an equal number of South Africans and foreign nationals. Each South African will donate their identify to the corresponding foreign national,” explained Motsoaledi in an interview with Newzroom Afrika.

“The South Africans who are recruited don’t have passports, so they apply for passports and provide their personal details and fingerprints. But when it’s time to take a photo, the South African moves aside and the foreign national moves in and takes a photo. All the details belong to a South African, but the photo belongs to a foreign national, who then applies for a passport and goes all over the world as a South African.”

Motsoaledi said the South African who donates their ID is paid R500, while the corrupt Home Affairs official gets R5,000 per passport. The Kingpin gets R40,000.

The minister admitted that the department had corrupt officials who enabled the abuse of the system to favour foreign nationals who were in the country illegally. Law enforcement agencies are currently looking for eight such officials connected to the passport scheme.

“I won’t blame South Africans for being angry, in fact, I am angry. We are being abused. People come here, claim to be asylum seekers and then defraud our documents. It’s unacceptable and we’re going to wipe them off. I personally am not going to accept this issue.”

According to Captain Ndivhuwo Mulamu, upon searching the premises, authorities found approximately R45,000 in cash wrapped in a black plastic bag and also seized three White Toyota Fortuners allegedly used to transport the suspects to be collected from Eldorado Pak and Cosmo City.

“Further investigation led the team to the alleged kingpin’s house at Northcliff in Randburg where his wife and more fraudulent passports were found. She was also arrested and charged for possession of suspected fraudulent documents.”

The 29 suspects, aged between 42 and 19, are expected to appear in the Krugersdorp and Randburg Magistrates’ Courts respectively on Monday.

Investigations continue.

This comes just days after Malawian nationals were arrested and charged for contravention of the Immigration Act after allegedly entering the country illegally last Wednesday.

According to Brigadier Selvy Mohlala, the 34 people, aged between 21 and 34, were arrested on the R 541 Road near Elukwatini on Wednesday morning, on charges of being in the country illegally.

Members from Elukwatini SAPS were working on the road between Badplaas and Nhlazatshe (Elukwatini) and while executing their duties, they stopped two mini buses that were trailing each other.

“A search was then conducted by the members on the two kombis upon which it was discovered that the occupants were Malawian Nationals without valid permits/ documentations. In addition to the 34, there were also two children, both aged 2 who reportedly came with their mothers into the country,” said Mohlala.

The Malawian nationals – 23 men and 11 women – were all charged for contravention of the Immigration Act.

www.samigration.com