South Africa to investigate foreigners with permits in February

South Africa to investigate foreigners with permits in February


21 January 2022 – Zimbabwe Mail

The South Africa Department of Home Affairs will begin a Citizen Authentication System  which is set to verify permits and Visas issued to foreigners since 2004.

The operation is aimed at fishing out individuals who fraudulently acquired permits to stay in the country.

The Home Affairs Minister Aaaron Motsoaledi said the need to review the permits came after realising a trend emerging from the outcomes of cases involving prominent people investigated by the Department’s Counter Corruption Unit, which investigates wrongdoing by departmental officials.

“In November 2020, during a high-powered investigation, I was alarmed when 14 members of the permitting section signed a petition demanding that the Counter Corruption unit should stop investigating their errors. This admission strengthened my resolve to have a more transparent permit issuance regime.” He said.

www.samigration.com

Malema concedes there is nothing untoward about Mall of Africa restaurants' hiring policies

Malema concedes there is nothing untoward about Mall of Africa restaurants' hiring policies

News 24 – 21/01/2022


  • Despite initially saying that restaurants at the Mall of Africa in Midrand were using discriminatory policies that favoured foreigners, Julius Malema on Wednesday conceded that this is not so. 
  • The EFF leader’s change of mind came after meeting with the management of three restaurants. 
  • Malema justified his unsanctioned visits, saying they were being conducted in his capacity as an MP. 

After forcing his way into at least three restaurants at the Mall of Africa in Johannesburg on Wednesday - and demanding to see the businesses’ employment details, so as to ascertain the ratio of foreign and local employees - EFF leader Julius Malema eventually conceded that it was not true that the establishments were inclined towards hiring mainly foreign nationals. 

"We have gone to three restaurants, and we are well certified that they are adhering to what we are looking for. Kream has an almost 50/50 employment ratio when it comes to foreign nationals and locals, while the other restaurants, Ponta and Doppio Zero, have got a majority of their employees being South Africans. 

"We want to make an emphasis to the owners of restaurants that no one should stop employing Zimbabweans here; we want them to work here because this is their home. There should be no apology about hiring Zimbambweans or any other African brothers or sisters. In doing so, businesses must also still remain conscious that there are locals who must be given a preference," said the EFF leader. 

Malema, who had initially insisted that the restaurants, particularly Kream, was hiring mostly foreign nationals, eventually backed down following protracted meetings with the management of the various restaurants. 

The EFF leader initially got into a verbal confrontation with a manager at Kream Restaurant, who had at first refused to grant the EFF leader and his delegation access into the restaurant. 

The Kream restaurant manager, who refused to identify himself to the EFF or the media, told Malema that he could only hand over a letter from the business owners and could not engage with the party’s leadership on the premises. 

He also asked Malema in which capacity he was visiting the establishment. 

The irate EFF leader said he had come to visit the restaurants in his capacity as a Member of Parliament, and warned the manager that should they not let them in, the business would not operate for the day. 

"We will call our members to come and shut this establishment down," said Malema, who also promised to close all other Kream branches across Gauteng. 

He accused the establishment’s management of being arrogant, given that they had apparently agreed to meet with his party on Tuesday, only to renege. 

Malema was asked whether his visit, and claim that he was checking the ratio between foreign and South African nationals, would not lead to xenophobic attacks.

He answered that it was the restaurant owners who were cultivating tensions between foreigners and locals through practicing exclusionary employment tactics that favoured foreigners. 

"They employ foreign nationals, then come to us citizens and say these people are taking your jobs, which leads to us hating each other as Africans," said Malema. 

'We are singing from the same hymn book'

However, after making all these unsubstantiated claims, the EFF leader, after visiting three restaurants at the same mall, then conceded that his initial suspicions had been proven wrong. 

He did, however, maintain that "businesses can not have a situation where they exclude South Africans, and we have made that point clear to everyone, and they all agree that we have a problem of high unemployment and a problem of poverty as a country, which can only be resolved through employment".

Malema said:

We are highly encouraged that we are singing from the same hymn book… One of the managers we met in the restaurants was a South African manager and empathically made the point that he could not sit in a managerial position to the exclusion of their own citizens.

He added that unity in Africa could only be established from working together: "it's not unity through speeches and rhetoric, it must be shown through actions.

“The problems faced by foreign nationals at workplaces should be embraced as our own problems, as well to that at the end of the day employers treat everyone equally and pay everyone the same. All these points were made clear," said Malema. 

He also claimed that the Kream management had since apologised for their behaviour and had blamed it on their legal department. 

"They said that someone gave them a letter not to engage with us. They all had their facts in order. They had a list of their employees, their ID number, and passports for those who are non-South African, to prove to us that they are indeed trying and are trying to employ as many South Africans as possible."

Malema insisted that the revived stance on foreign employment in South Africa was not a new thing within his party ranks. 

"We have always been clear on our stance, and people are distorting our position. What we have always maintained is that there is no one who will drive Africans out of South Africa.

"Even if we chase them out of this country, we will still have an unemployment crisis. The people who are the instigators are the employers who employs foreign nationals and then say they are taking your jobs in an attempt to divide us as brothers."

www.samigration.com

 

 

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

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

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

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