Parliament has been urged to be patient as investigations into visa and permit fraud at the Department of Home Affairs unfold.

Officials from the department appeared before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday to provide an update about the progress made on the Lubisi report’s recommendations.The report emanated from a ministerial committee established by Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to review all the permits and visas issued since 2004.A multi-disciplinary task team (MDTT) was assigned to implement the report and has been operational since March 2023.

Visa, permit investigations

Briefing the parliamentary committee on Tuesday, forensic investigator Peter Bishop, who is part of the MDTT, reminded MPs the Lubisi report recommended that foreign pastors and prophets such as Shepherd Bushiri be investigated.

Bishop said the team has recovered data sets to run data analysis tests.

“A number of matters have been referred to the DPCI [Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation or Hawks] criminal investigation,” he said.The investigator told the committee that all permanent residence permits that were approved, but had been declined previously due to false documentation having been submitted were still being investigated.

All issued visitors visas status change to permanent residence permits while in South Africa as well as business permits, under age visas, work visas and study visas were also being looked at.

“All visa applications that were processed after hours, over weekends and public holidays on [the visa adjudication system] by Home Affairs official, each case needs to be investigated to avoid any manipulation of data,” Bishop continued.

Bishop said the same passport number used by multiple people was being investigated.Even passports that were processed and approved within a day or less will be under scrutiny.

Home Affairs legal opinion

Bishop further told the committee that the Department of Home Affairs received a legal opinion in November last year, which suggested that visas must be annulled in cases where applicants possess such a document obtained through fraudulent means and face deportation in terms of the Immigration Act.The holders of fraudulent permanent residence permits will suffer the same fate.

All affected parties holding fraudulent visas or permanent residence permits should be informed about about the revocation of their documents, according to the legal opinion.

“Once adequate notice has been given, the applicants with fraudulent visas or permanent residence permits should be added to [the prohibited person list] and deported,” Bishop explained.

For applicants who became naturalised citizens fraudulently will also be strip of the naturalisation rights by the minister.The MDTT has found that 45 000 visas and permits were issued fraudulently between 2014 and 2021, Bishop revealed.At least 50 Home Affairs officials were identified in the disciplinary referrals by the department.

Two officials have been referred to the Hawks for criminal investigation.There are 33 officials who might be referred after their disciplinary hearings.Bishop further highlighted that 27 charge sheets have been finalised, five disciplinary hearings are proceeding, 10 disciplinary matters have proposed dates set down, 12 disciplinary matters have been concluded and nine officials have been dismissed.

“One official has been dismissed and is subject to an appeal and two officials resigned when notices were served on them.”

More than 307 000 instances, Bishop said, of potentially implicated individuals in unlawful or irregular activities relating to the processing of visas and permits were flagged by the MDTT during investigations.Corruption, After the presentation members of the committee expressed concern over the speed of the MDTT’s investigations.

MPs were also worried about the Home Affairs officials who are still employed by the department, saying this placed the investigation at risk and, therefore, could lead to further problems in the processing of permits and visas.

Meanwhile, Home Affairs Minister Deputy Njabulo Nzuza emphasised that work has been done to deal with the “rot and corruption” within the department.

“I must alert the committee that in our approach we must always remember that fighting corruption also comes with [financial] costs in terms of investigations.

“There will be time delay issues as well as system and process change costs. If you look at the recommendations, they are quiet clear in terms of the system changes that we must effect.

“We must also remember that there will always be criminal procedures that will have to be followed, which means that when we are dealing with corruption we are not just dealing with a person doing something wrong and then you cut them off from work.

“There are processes that you have to follow to the level where-in you ultimately get a conviction of that person. That’s when you can say justice has been done and that process is delicate and it has a lot of legal issues,” the deputy minister told MPs.

Nzuza asked the committee to be patient as investigations continue rather than having individuals “walking off just because of a procedure that might not have been followed”.Motsoaledi stressed it was “not automatic” that an official will be suspended, while they are being investigated.

“It depends on the type of investigation [as to] how will that person affect the investigation. There are serious cases where we actually do suspend [Home Affairs officials].”

The minister also said the investigations were looking to things that happened over “a very long time”.

“Remember that with the Lubisi report, we asked them to start as far back as 2004. From 2004 until now, that’s 20 years [so] events that took place [in this period] cannot really be finalised in a short space of time.”

In January, the court declared that the placing of markers by the Department of Home Affairs against identity numbers or identity documents resulting in the blocking of identity numbers in the absence of fair administrative process as unjust and irregular administrative action that is inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid.

The department was taken to court by Phindile Mazibuko and two Lawyers for Human Rights and LegalWise South Africa with the Children’s Institute as an amicus curiae.

DA MP Angel Khanyile wrote to Motsoaledi asking whether his department had put a timeline in place to comply with the judgment.

In his response, Motsoaledi said the court judgment granted his department a period of 12 months, from January 16, 2024, to March 1, 2025, to determine whether any identity number against which markers have been placed and which to date remain marked, correctly reflect the particulars of the person to whom the identity number was assigned.

He said the department was to also obtain court orders authorising the identity numbers of the affected persons to remain blocked prior to any investigation or inquiry having been finalised.

Motsoaledi said an internal audit and verification process determined the numbers at 697 000 out of the 700 000 blocked IDs.

“Of these 160 000 letters have been sent to clients in line with the principles of administrative justice as outlined in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, wherein clients have to be notified before the cancellation or deletion of the identity number of the client, and will be allowed to make representations to be considered by the department once all the relevant internal processes are concluded.

“The remaining 537 000 letters are being processed by the department and mainly include illegal immigrants and duplicates,” he said.

Thousands of people cannot access healthcare or education after Home Affairs decided in 2012 to block their ‘suspicious’ identity documents. 

In 2012, the Department of Home Affairs embarked on a mass drive to block South African identity documents in a bid to address fraud and misrepresentation, which had resulted in duplicate IDs on the National Population Register.

What initially started as 29,000 IDs having markers placed against them quickly escalated to more than one million by 2020.

 It resulted in people like Khanyi Mkhwanazi having their dignity and citizenship stripped from them, propelling them into statelessness.

“What is happening is so unfair. My father was a South African and I am married to a South African, but now Home Affairs is telling me that I am an illegal immigrant,” Mkhwanazi said in an emotional interview.

Mkhwanazi is a 50-year-old mother and grandmother whose troubles with Home Affairs started in 1990.

Although she was born and raised in Eswatini, her father was a South African who hailed from Mbuzini, a small village bordering Eswatini and Mozambique.

When apartheid was coming to an end, Mkhwanazi’s father took her to a makeshift Home Affairs office in Mpumalanga to apply for her ID, which was never issued.

Mkhwanazi spent time going back and forth between Swaziland and Mbuzini, but she permanently relocated to South Africa in 2002 when she got married.

She applied for permanent residence and citizenship, both of which were granted.

But later, when she went to register her business, she discovered that she could not because Home Affairs had blocked her ID, claiming she was an illegal immigrant.

“I can’t do anything. I literally can’t do anything. I’m stateless because I can’t open a bank account. I can’t start a business,” Mkhwanazi said.

“I’m working as a chef now, but if the Department of Labour comes to my [place of work], I fear I will be fired and arrested.”

Mkhwanazi said she dreamt of starting several businesses, from an early childhood development centre to a small takeaway shop, but these dreams had been dashed because Home Affairs had rendered her stateless.

As we speak now, my daughter is suicidal. She cannot get a job because of this ID mess.

“All that has been shattered because of one thing. I do not want to work for someone else for the rest of my life, but my life is stagnant. How would I move forward? Because to do anything in South Africa, you need an ID,” she said.

Desperate to have her South African ID unblocked and having exhausted every other avenue, Mkhwanazi said she was willing to take a DNA test to prove that she is indeed South African.

“My father passed away, rest his soul, and my aunt is gone too. I have no one I can turn to but my [half-]brother, so if they want DNA, they can match my brother’s DNA with mine.

“But besides that, I’ve been married to a South African for more than 20 years. Does that not count for something?” the mother of two asked.

Generational curses

The consequences of Mkhwanazi having her ID blocked are not felt by her alone, but extend across three generations.

She brought her daughter, Mai Bvutula, to South Africa when she got married in 2002. However, because Mkhwanazi’s ID was blocked, Bvutula has not been able to obtain an ID herself.

“As we speak now, my daughter is suicidal. She cannot get a job because of this ID mess. She can’t even get Sassa [grants] to support herself and her children,” Mkhwanazi said.

“So now I am stateless and my daughter and grandchildren are too, and it’s all because Home Affairs cannot be straight with us.”

Bvutula’s state of despair has driven her to consider the unthinkable.

“She once said to me: ‘You know what, Mama, when I’m with my kids, I feel so overwhelmed because I’m alone and I’m not working. I can’t get any social help. I feel like I can kill my kids.’

“That’s the damage this whole situation has done to my kids,” Mkhwanazi said.

Actually, I’m just useless because there’s just nothing that I can do to progress or to make my kid’s life better.

“This has affected my four grandchildren so badly. Because my daughter doesn’t have an ID, their births have never been registered. They cannot be accepted into school because they don’t have birth certificates.”

Mkhwanazi explained that all but the oldest grandchild had been excluded from obtaining an education.

Thanks to the intervention of a social worker, Sinethemba Skylar Bvutula started attending school for the first time in 2023 at the age of eight. Missing the foundation phases of early childhood development, Sinethemba went straight to Grade 2, which Mkhwanazi said could not be good for a child’s development.

Hope for the future

Though Home Affairs had unblocked more than one million IDs by 2023, hundreds of thousands of people are still affected by the practice and cut off from the system, rendering them unable to access healthcare services and education, to get a job or even open a bank account.

The High Court in Pretoria brought relief to thousands of affected people when it handed down a landmark judgment on 16 January declaring the practice unconstitutional.

Although the court ordered the department to unblock IDs that have been unfairly blocked, many people are still waiting, living in limbo but eager to get on with their lives.

Mkhwanazi said she had hopes that Home Affairs will unblock her ID soon so that she, her daughter and her grandchildren could go on with their lives.

She said she fears the department will not fix the mess it created when it started to block IDs indiscriminately, but she will never give up hope.

“Some time back, I used to feel like I [was] stateless. Actually, I’m just useless because there’s just nothing that I can do to progress or to make my kid’s life better. There’s just nothing I can do.

“But as an adult, you come to a point like, no man, this is not the end of the road,” Mkhwanazi said.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the visa corruption was sophisticated. 

• According to Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, sophisticated officials are behind visa corruption.

• Several irregularities were uncovered with the issuing of visas to Chinese nationals.

• So far, 28 matters have been referred to the Hawks for further investigation and 94 matters are being considered for possible referral.

Investigations into violations of visa regulations has found that more than 3 000 Chinese nationals applied for South African visas and permits from a `nodal point`, and nearly 500 came from applicants who used the same address.

On top of this, another 477 applications came from Chinese nationals who applied for visas using addresses that were vacant (vacant erven), and 75 came from those who listed addresses that did not exist.

Details of these were shared by the multi-disciplinary task team the Department of Home Affairs had appointed to investigate corruption in the issuing of visas, permits and identity documents.

The task team, chaired by former top civil servant Cassius Lubisi, briefed the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday.

Forensic investigations specialist Peter Bishop, who is part of the task team, told the committee a preliminary analysis of available evidence led to the identification of an address as a nodal point referred to in at least 3 193 applications for various visas or permits by Chinese foreign nationals.

Two officials, who were stationed at the Beijing Mission in China, have been linked to these cases. 

`The task team performed further data analysis and uncovered a further 187 applicants, warranting immediate further investigation as this number is rapidly escalating as further investigations are undertaken by the task team,` Bishop said.

`Relating to the broad identified address, certain specific addresses utilised: 477 appear to relate to vacant erven whilst in respect of other addresses, 75, appear to be non-existent. Further investigation is ongoing. In certain instances, the same address was utilised by up to 488 applicants, being highly unusual,` Bishop said.

The task team conducted a data analysis into three identified applicants, the following was established:

• links with at least eight DHA officials;

• links with 115 other foreign nationals;

• links with 17 South African nationals; and

• links with 34 businesses.

`Due to the extensive networks related to these three identified applicants, both intra and extra the DHA, a high likelihood exists that syndication related to irregular and/or unlawful activities may be uncovered as investigations related thereto progress,` Bishop said.

Furthermore, 115 instances in which officials were implicated in potentially unlawful and irregular activities were uncovered.

There were 78 instances in which questionable medical reports had been submitted and 76 in which questionable radiological reports had been submitted.

Regarding retirement visas and permits, the initial investigation focused on 3 530 retired person visa applications and visas issued.

During this process, it is alleged that similar documentation was used in retirement person visa applications.

`On the face of it, such individuals appear too young to be retiring. Preliminary findings to date have identified a number of officials involved, with three department officials appearing to have processed the bulk thereof,` Bishop said.

Regarding disciplinary matters, 27 charge sheets have been finalised and submitted to the department.

Five disciplinary hearings have commenced and are proceeding while 10 disciplinary matters have proposed set down dates.

Twelve disciplinary matters have been concluded, nine officials have been dismissed and one dismissal is the subject of an appeal.

Two officials have resigned.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the visa corruption was sophisticated.

`This report came about with [Shepherd] Bushiri. While we were working on fixing things, there were 14 officials who had asked us to not investigate their errors. They did not see their errors as corruption. This people have covered their tracks very well. The sit and plan which mistakes they should not make,` he said.

IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe said the department was dragging its feet in investigating matters.

She said:

If applicants supply fraudulent information, why don`t we just block them. We do not have the capacity to investigate all these matters. Officials have also resigned, and we don`t always investigate it further. This is not right.

DA MP Adrian Roos said the corruption stemmed from years ago.

`The time that has been spent on the investigation could have been used to reduce the visa backlog. I have also not seen, allocations to IT projects that seek to upgrade the system. There are several red flags,` he said.

Bishop said the department sought legal advice and it was recommended that in cases where applicants had obtained visas through fraudulent means, the visas must be annulled.

`Upon the annulment of their visas, these individuals should be deported,` Bishop said.

The Johannesburg high court has revoked a “fraudulently obtained” divorce decree granted 13 years ago because the husband never served his wife with divorce summons.

The husband could also not provide a copy of the divorce summons and details of the lawyers he used. The application for rescission was brought after the husband attempted to evict his wife from their matrimonial home.

The couple, from Meadowlands in Soweto, were married in community of property in 1981. The wife alleged that her husband abused her in the 1990s and she had to get a protection order against him which he violated in 2010.

In November that year, the husband instituted divorce proceedings in the regional court. The husband was represented by a firm of attorneys, Sarlie& Ismail Inc. In the summons, he asked the court for a decree of divorce and a division of the joint estate.

She filed a notice of intention to defend in December 2010. She filed a plea disputing the reasons for the breakdown of the marriage. She represented herself and was served with a notice to attend a pretrial conference in May 2012.

During the same month, she found a divorce decree granted in the South Gauteng High Court in her home post box. The divorce decree was granted on an unopposed basis in November 2011.

The order stated that the marriage was dissolved and that she forfeited the benefits arising from the marriage, including the property in Meadowlands and her husband’s pension fund.

She argued that she was never served with a summons out of the South Gauteng division. She contended that she was completely unaware that the husband had instituted divorce proceedings out of the high court against her while the regional court proceedings were still ongoing and that the relief sought by her husband in the high court differed substantially from the one he sought at the regional court.

In deciding the matter, the court found numerous difficulties with the high court divorce decree, and with emphasis on the importance of details in orders relating to property transfers.

Attempts were made to find the court file in respect of the high court divorce proceedings and on March 13 2023, the registrar confirmed the file could not be located.

The court said the woman was left with no option but to launch the rescission application as she was not served with the high court summons, and it would be “incomprehensible” that a forfeiture order would have been granted in respect of the property.

The court said there were no grounds for forfeiture and that the forfeiture order impacted negatively upon her constitutional rights. In opposing the application, the husband argued that he became dissatisfied with the services rendered by Sarlie & Ismail Inc.

However, he did not provide any reasons for his dissatisfaction. Furthermore, he was introduced (by people unknown) to a certain “Mr. Levin” who proceeded to institute high court divorce proceedings.

At the time, he was under the bona fide impression that the regional court proceedings were withdrawn. However, he failed to provide the court with any details regarding Mr. Levin.

The court concluded that the circumstances surrounding the granting of the high court divorce decree were suspicious, especially as the husband had neglected or refused to provide the necessary documentation, that would disprove such averments.

The court ordered that the divorce decree granted by the high court be rescinded and set aside. Further, that the transfer of the wife’s half share ownership of the matrimonial property to her husband is cancelled .