Bribery and corruption: an inside look at the dealings between some Home Affairs officials and foreign nationals

Weekend Argus -  21 January 2022

Cape Town - For as little as R300 you can buy safe passage into the country as corruption and greed permeates South Africa’s border control.

The Department of Home Affairs has confirmed it takes just a few hundred rands as desperate and corrupt officials accept bribes from foreign nationals that need various documents.

Documents like citizenship and asylum papers can go for up to R200 000 but the Department of Home Affairs warned against the practice.

After a series of corrupt officials were arrested last week, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said: “If you are conducting your illegal operation at the Department of Home Affairs, law enforcement is coming for you. You are going to face the full might of the law.”

Motsoaledi said they were hot on the trail of corrupt officials and that undercover teams, along with the Hawks would unearth the corrupt.

Two weeks ago, the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court convicted former Home Affairs Official Joseph Lebitsa on eight counts of corruption. Three more officials were arrested in Ermelo, for demanding money from foreign nationals who run businesses in the town.

“Some of these officials allegedly took as little as R300 to allow people to enter the country without proper documents. To me, this is not just crime or corruption, but it is an absolute disgrace and an act of treason against one’s country.”

Weekend Argus spoke to a foreign national from Pakistan, who agreed to talk anonymously.

“If new people come, they can charge up to R200 000 and the money is given to immigration people and they share it.

“There is someone who has a connection with Home Affairs at the airport. They bring the people from outside and the money is given to immigration and they release the people to come into South Africa without papers.”

A police officer, who cannot be identified, said often the game would be given away when the system would be updated in minutes after the foreigner had supposedly crossed the border.

“Foreign national comes here for a study or holiday visa, he hides his passport away and gets an asylum (document). When he goes back to his country, he jumps the border and pays the official who lets him go through and stamps his passport. When you have a permit like that in your passport, you need to have multiple entries to extend it.

“When he arrives at the airport, their system will show this man did obey by the rules and regulations and where we pick it up is our data, it shows a foreigner going over the border and getting stamped out and 10, 20 minutes later he is stamped back in again.”

“There was a list of Home Affairs officials’ stamps that was stolen. Each official at Home Affairs is issued with a date stamp. Each date stamp has a number at the bottom right hand corner, for example 32 would belong to a certain staff member. That is how stamps are traced to a specific official.

“During a joint operation, stamps were found in possession of foreigners which were used to extend people’s asylum.”

An official at Home Affairs said only their staff were skilled to determine whether a document was fake or not.

He said it depended on details such as the font, watermark or fake reference numbers, which would give the game away.

He added corruption was so rife, that a low-income clerk would accept payment to high-ranking officials, making sure they had regular customers.

“Pakistanis will call an official, they are legal but they want citizenship as soon as possible. They just buy it from officials, they get corrupted because they are offered money, like R70 000 and R90 000, R100 000, when they are approached in top levels.

“He asks the corrupter how long do you want to stay here, then he puts down a date for his prerogative. He chooses a date, but they become greedy and careless and they extend it beyond the date of expiry.

Institute for Security Studies migration expert, Aimee-Noel Mobiyozo said the blame did not only fall on foreign nationals but Home Affairs.

“If the document fraud is for South African documents, this implies people within Home Affairs are involved. This is consistent with our past research that has consistently demonstrated that corruption is rife within Home Affairs.

“Cape Town closed its refugee reception office in 2012. This was ruled illegal and Home Affairs was ordered to re-open the office in 2018.

“This has not happened to date and it means that people requiring documents are struggling more than ever to access them legally.”

www.samigration

Undocumented man applying for refugee status can remain in SA, Concourt rules

18 January 2022 Groundup

Court ruled that a delay in applying for refugee status does not affect a person’s right to apply for recognition as a refugee

The Constitutional Court has ordered the South African government not deport an Ethiopian national until the finalisation of his application for recognition as a refugee.

The judgment, delivered in December, is important for undocumented immigrants who have not timeously applied for refugee status.

In 2020 Desta Abore, an Ethiopian national, was arrested for entering and living in South Africa without the relevant documents in violation of the Immigration Act. He pleaded guilty at the time and the Eshowe Magistrates Court sentenced him to 50 days in prison or to pay a R1,500 fine. He paid the fine, but was not released.

Abore then approached the Durban High Court for an order declaring his detention unlawful. He also wanted to prohibit the government from deporting him until he had been allowed to apply for refugee status under the Refugee Act.

In court papers Abore said he had fled Ethiopia because he was involved in political activities and faced the death penalty. He said that he entered South Africa illegally through Zimbabwe.

Abore said it was always his intention to apply for asylum and seek refugee status. He said he was unable to not apply for asylum immediately because of the Covid lockdown and then long queues at the Refugee Reception office in Durban.

It was never made clear when he actually entered South Africa because he gave contradictory dates to the court, and his attorneys, about when he entered the country.

The Durban High Court granted a temporary order prohibiting the government from deporting Abore until he had an opportunity to argue why he should be allowed to apply for refugee status. However, Abore failed to take steps to finalise the case.

The interim order lapsed, and the government successfully applied for a warrant for his detention pending his deportation to Ethiopia. He was then detained in the Lindela repatriation centre.

Abore then applied to the High Court in Johannesburg for his immediate release so that he could apply for refugee status.

High Court dismisses Abore’s application

In March 2021, the High Court in Johannesburg dismissed Abore’s application to be released. The court also dismissed the argument that his detention was unlawful.

In court papers, Judge Leonard Twala stated that Abore should have applied for asylum soon after entering the country. It was not sufficient for him to only tell the government that he intended to apply for asylum after being arrested.

“The applicant is not approaching this court with clean hands since he has been living in the Republic for four years without the necessary documentation. It is therefore not open to the applicant to demand that he be afforded the protection of the law because that would be tantamount to rewarding him for breaking the law”, Twala said.

Abore also never told the authorities after his arrest that he would be persecuted if deported to Ethiopia and he never told the magistrate that he wanted to seek asylum. Judge Twala said that Abore could not rely on the fact there were long queues at the Refugee Reception office to justify his failure for not applying for refugee status timeously.

The High Court also rejected the argument that Abore’s detention was unlawful. This was because his detention complied with the Immigration Act, Twala ruled.

Abore was released in June 2021 after the warrant authorising his detention at Lindela had lapsed. After his release, the Department of Home Affairs told him to leave the country by July or he would be deported.

Abore then brought an application to appeal the High Court order directly to the Constitutional Court. He also obtained an order from the High Court prohibiting his deportation until his Constitutional Court appeal was finalised.

The Appeal

Abore argued that the High Court failed to consider that once he said he had an intention to apply for asylum, he had a right to be released and given a temporary permit to allow him to apply for refugee status. He said that it was irrelevant that he lived in the country illegally for several years before he stated that he had an intention to apply for refugee protection.

Abore told the court he would suffer irreparable harm if he was not allowed to apply for asylum. This was because he would potentially face the death penalty if he was deported to Ethiopia.

The Minister of Home Affairs opposed the appeal. He argued that Abore gave contradictory dates about when he entered the country and failed to take immediate steps to seek asylum.

The minister also argued that recent amendments to the Refugee Act, which came into effect in 2020, had changed the law. According to the Minister, the effect of these amendments was that undocumented immigrants no longer have an automatic right to demand their release from detention to apply for asylum.

This is because the amended Act and new regulations state that people applying for refugee status must first be interviewed by an immigration officer. They must show the immigration officer they have “good cause” for entering the country illegally and must explain why they did not seek asylum at an official point of entry. An undocumented immigrant who does not first show “good cause” cannot demand their immediate release to apply for asylum, the minister said.

Constitutional Court proceedings

Justice Zukisa Tshiqi, in a unanimous ruling, said the case had three issues.

The first was whether it was in the interests of justice that Abore be allowed to approach the Constitutional Court directly, without first going to the Supreme Court of Appeal. Second, whether an undocumented foreigners should be barred from applying for refugee status when they fail to apply timeously. And third, whether Abore’s detention was unlawful.

Justice Tshiqi said that the interests of justice required that the Constitutional Court should decide the appeal directly.

Tshiqi said it was necessary to clarify whether a delay in applying for refugee status prevents a person from later applying for refugee status. Second, it was necessary to determine whether the 2020 amendments to the Refugee Act had removed the automatic right of an undocumented foreigner to demand their release from detention so they could apply for asylum.

She said a delay by an undocumented immigrant in applying for refugee status does not affect their right to apply for recognition as a refugee. Tshiqi found that any delay in applying for refugee status is only relevant to determine whether someone is a genuine refugee. “It should at no stage function as an absolute disqualification from initiating the asylum application process.”

Tshiqi said the Minister’s argument that the 2020 amendments had removed the automatic right of a foreigner in the country illegally to demand their immediate release from detention to apply for asylum was misplaced.

She said that an undocumented person who seeks refugee status can only be deported after their application is rejected. Abore was therefore protected by the principle of non-refoulement and could not be deported until his application for refugee status had been finalised, Tshiqi said. (The non-refoulement principle means that under international law asylum seekers cannot be returned to a country where they face persecution for “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”. -

The Constitutional Court ruled that Abore should have been released from custody after he paid the admission of guilt fine. His detention after he paid the fine was therefore unlawful.

The court ordered the government to not deport Abore until his application for recognition as a refugee had been finally determined.

The Minister and Director General of Home Affairs were ordered to pay Abore’s legal costs for the proceedings in the High Court and Constitutional Court.

www.samigration.com

Dodgy permits probed

ANALYST: IMMIGRATION SYSTEM HAS LOST ALL CREDIBILITY DUE TO CORRUPTION

The Citizen  - 18 January 2022

Not worth the paper they were printed on

Review follows high-profile people investigated by dept’s corruption unit.

That Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is moving to review a raft of dodgy permits allegedly issued by corrupt officials is a welcome intervention but may be “too little, too late” to salvage the credibility of the immigration system, says a political analyst.

Vukani Kusile Foundation’s Solly Masilela said: “It will take time for the clean-up to be a success because corruption and maladministration of the immigration laws and regulations is too entrenched and linked to other departments, such as the department of international relations and cooperation. It is a step in the right direction though.”

Masilela added that the SA immigration system had taken such a knock that SA-issued documents were not worth the paper they were printed on.

Motsoaledi has received the report of the task team up in March to review some permits in a raft of categories. These include permanent residence permits and citizenship by naturalisation issued since 2004.

His office said he would make an announcement soon. The need to review the permits was triggered by a trend emerging from the outcomes of cases involving high-profile people investigated by the department’s corruption unit. In February the minister revealed that Enlightened Christian Gathering leader Shepherd Bushiri and his wife, Mary, had been in South Africa illegally.

The unit has established that 66% of cases involved immigration permitting.

Motsoaledi has said that in November last year, during a top-level investigation, he was shocked when 14 members of the permitting section signed a petition demanding that the corruption unit stop investigating their errors.

The minister said this admission strengthened his resolve to have a more transparent permit issuing regime.

Other permits on Motsoaledi’s radar are corporate visas, business visas, professional/critical skills visas, retired person’s visas and study visas.

Last week home, a home affairs official, Democratic Republic of the Congo national Mbemba Pierre Mahinga, was dealt a blow when the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed his application to stop the department stripping him of his SA citizenship.

The 55 year old arrived in SA in 1996 as an asylum seeker but withdrew his asylum application and instead applied for a permanent permit after marrying a South African in 1999. In 2003, he got citizenship but home affairs claimed he had engaged in a marriage of convenience to this end. –

www.samigration.com

 

'Fake marriage' costs DRC-born home affairs official his SA citizenship

Times Live - 24 December 2021

 

A DRC-born home affairs official has been stripped of SA citizenship after the department found he obtained it via a marriage of convenience. File photo.

A home affairs official’s professional ambition has had unintended consequences for him.

Mbemba Pierre Mahinga faces a bleak 2022 after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) dismissed his application to stop the home affairs department stripping him of his SA citizenship.

In 1996 Mahinga, now 55, arrived in SA from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an asylum seeker, and home affairs alleged he engaged in a marriage of convenience to get citizenship.

He worked at home affairs, where a promotion exposed problems with his CV.

Mahinga has been engaged in a legal battle with the home affairs minister and director-general since 2016, when the minister revoked his citizenship and terminated his employment.

He hauled the minister and the director-general to the high court in Pretoria and won a minor reprieve when the court set aside the decision to revoke his citizenship.  

However, the full bench of the court later ruled in favour of the minister and director-general when they appealed, at which point Mahinga turned to the SCA.

The court in Bloemfontein dashed his hopes last month. A 17-page judgment penned by judge Dumisani Zondi detailed inconsistencies in Mahinga’s CV, asylum seeker application and marriage.

The judgment said Mahinga flew to the DRC for a holiday in 2012 even though he claimed to have fled the country because he feared persecution.

According to the judgment, Mahinga married a South African in 1999. He withdrew his asylum application the following year and applied for a permanent residence permit. It was granted in 2001, and two years later he obtained citizenship.

“At that stage there were problems in the marriage,” said Zondi.

“His wife was allegedly seeing another man. A child was born from this relationship on October 15 2003, four months after his application for naturalisation. He renounced his Congolese citizenship in 2015.”

In  2004, Mahinga got a job as an admin clerk at the home affairs refugee reception centre in Pretoria. He was promoted to assistant director in 2006.

“When he applied for employment at the department, [he submitted his curriculum vitae as part of his application. Under work experience on his CV, he stated he was an employee at the embassy of the DRC in Pretoria as an administrative officer from July 1998 to August 2000, and left the embassy’s employ because he was retrenched,” said Zondi.

A tip-off in 2007 sparked a home affairs investigation, but Mahinga did not co-operate with officials when he was asked to provide information for vetting purposes in 2011.

The investigation escalated in 2013 when the department picked up inconsistencies in his application for citizenship after perusing its movement control system. These included how and when he entered SA, the legitimacy of his marriage and “false registration of several children on his personal and salary system”.

The department concluded he was “an illegal foreigner, whose only two options to remain in SA were to apply for asylum or go into a marriage of convenience”, said Zondi.

His application was founded on misrepresentations and the spouse permit in support of his citizenship application was allegedly false.

Mahinga denied the allegations.

“I have never been an illegal foreigner in SA,” he told home affairs.

“My asylum application was based on true-life persecution experiences. My asylum claim was appropriately lodged and duly registered in 1996 first. Home affairs put me through a second re-registration process in 1998.

“The accompanying spouse permit was legitimate. My spousal relationship was based on true love, good faith and a genuine spousal relationship reinforced by shared dreams, shared family life and faithfulness and meant to last until death do us part.”

He said only the department could shed light on “how people I never officially declared as being my children or being connected to me ended up being linked to me”.

The SCA found Mahinga obtained permanent residence through misrepresentation because he was not staying with the woman to whom he claimed to have been married. It dismissed his appeal and ordered him to pay the legal costs.

Neither Mahinga’s lawyers nor home affairs responded to requests for comment.

www.samigration.com

 

White South Africans are leaving the country in their thousands: Stats SA

Businesstech - 19 December 2021

Statistics South Africa has published its mid-year population estimates for 2021, showing that the country’s population continues to grow, to 60.1 million people.

The country recorded a net increase of 520,628 people between estimates in 2020 and 2021, Stats SA said.

StatsSA also provided a breakdown of demographics, including the estimated shifts among different racial population groups. Black South African estimates increased by 486,602 over the period, while the country’s coloured population grew by 47,228. The Asian/Indian population group added 4,109 over the last year.

South Africa’s white population, however, declined by 17,311 people between 2020 and 2021, Stats SA said.

Notably, while South Africa’s white population still maintains its proportionate make-up of the overall population, at 7.8%, this has steadily declined over the years, from 7.9% in 2019, 8.1% in 2016, and 9.0% in 2011. Stats SA pointed to emigration as a key factor in this declining trend.

Migration data over the 2016-2020 period shows that South Africa has seen a massive influx of foreign nationals over the last five years. Stats SA estimates that between 2016 and 2021 South Africa is expected to see net international migration of 852,992 people into the country.

This includes a large number of people entering the country from Africa (894,365), as well as a smaller number from Asia (49,854). However, the stats body estimated that around 91,000 white South Africans will have left the country over the period.

Stats SA’s migration assumptions are in fact lower than previously reported – in 2020 it was expected that 115,000 white South Africans would have left the country by 2021.

One reason for this lower number could be the Covid-19 pandemic, which Stats SA said had an indirect impact on migration data, and affected 16 of the 60 months under review.

“There is a marked reduction in international migration, which is indicative of the Covid-19 travel restrictions globally over the past 16 months,” it said. However, it noted that internal numbers have not been as affected because internal mobility over this period has been temporary.

Overall, Stats SA estimates that 611,500 white South Africans have left the country over the last 35 years, contributing to the declining trend.

Looking at the larger picture of South Africa’s racial demographics as a proportion of the population, little has changed over the last decade, with black South Africans accounting for around 80% of the population.

In raw numbers, South Africa’s white population is estimated to be 96,600 larger than a decade ago (2011), however, this follows a loss of 108,900 people in number between 2013 and 2017, and a gain of 186,270 between 2018 and 2020.

Zooming in on the population proportions (percentage of the population) among minorities, while coloured South Africans and Indian/Asian South Africans have remained stable, white South Africans have shown a clear decline.

Stats SA’s population figures are based on estimates from a cohort. While it is considered an accurate reflection of the demographics of the country, it can change based on new information.

The most accurate way to get population figures is from a national census, with Stats SA expected to conduct one in October 2021.

www.samigration.com