Home Affairs blitz on fake SA passports

The Department of Home Affairs at Beit Bridge border post has intensified the crackdown on foreigners, mostly Zimbabweans, using fraudulently acquired South African passports.

According to media reports, the department is confiscating an average of 80 fraudulently acquired passports at the Beit Bridge Border Post every day. The spokesperson for the department, Ms Siobhan McCarthy, was quoted as saying they had intensified the investigations in which they were mainly targeting Beit Bridge and Lebombo border posts, which are reportedly the busiest entry points.

The blitz is part of that government’s turnaround strategy to deal with corruption, which has rocked the Home Affairs department. The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has since suspended 59 officials after they were implicated in the fraudulent registration of foreigners, mainly from Pakistan.

Scores of Zimbabweans working in South Africa who had travelled home for Christmas, were left stranded at Beit Bridge Border Post after having been denied entry into South Africa for allegedly using fraudulently acquired passports. However, some had to resort to border jumping, while others opted to use the Botswana-South Africa route.

When Mirror visited the border post, there was a long winding queue of travellers who were undergoing a screening process by the Home Affairs officials manning the entry gate.

Meanwhile, some locals in Beit Bridge are now cashing in on the blitz by facilitating those denied entry at the border to cross the border illegally through undesignated entry points along the Limpopo River. One such member of a syndicate involved in facilitating border jumping, who only identified himself as Muunga, said: “We are making a lot of money out this unfortunate situation at the border and we are assisting those who are stranded to cross into South Africa. We charge between R300 and R500 per individual.” He said on a busy day they raked in about R8 000 per day.

 

News - Date: 15 January 2010

Mashudu Netsianda

Mashudu Netsianda is our correspondent in Beit Bridge, Zimbabwe. He joined us in 2006, writing both local and international stories. He had worked for several Zimbabwean publications, as well as the Times of Swaziland. Mashudu received his training at the School of Mass Communication in Harare.

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