Home Affairs responds to corruption report

The Department of Home Affairs went into damage control mode following a report that listed its Marabastad office as its most corrupt.

In response to the damning finding, the department had set up a response team and a counter-corruption initiative — Operation Bvisa Masina, which is Venda for "throw out the rot" — to restore order throughout Home Affairs branches.

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said: "We’re bent on cleaning the rot."

The response team comprised officials from Home Affairs, the State Security Agency, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation and the South African Revenue Service.

Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration and Society found in the report that corruption at the department’s Marabastad office stood at 62%.

The report was based on a survey of 928 asylum seekers and refugees at Home Affairs offices in Marabastad, Tshwane, Cape Town and Durban.

Durban was the least corrupt at 3%.

A total of 51% respondents at Marabastad experienced corruption while standing in queues and 30% were denied entry to the office because they could not pay bribes.

But Mr Gigaba said the report "singled" out Marabastad and the research methodology used to compile it had "weaknesses".

The researchers should not have relied only on people standing outside the offices but should have also gone inside the offices to conduct their research, he said.

The minister did, however, admit that the report’s findings could not be dismissed. "We can’t ignore any voices that seek to amplify the challenges we are faced with."

Between April and July, the department had carried out investigations that resulted in five officials’ arrest and three other individuals, the minister said.

Former home affairs employee Primrose Dyonase was last week sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption and fraud.

Ms Dyonase falsified travel and subsistence claims, which amounted to more than R145,000, between January and December 2012.

In the course of her endeavours, she forked out a bribe to senior accountant Selby Skosana to the tune of R45,000. Mr Skosana was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, two of which were suspended. He is assisting the state in investigating other officials.

Department spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said the most common immigration scams involved foreign nationals who allegedly used syndicates to register children as South Africans illegally.

Also, human trafficking remained an issue, particularly in the hospitality sector and domestic work, he said.

He also alleged that syndicates targeted asylum seekers and refugees from different camps and used them to set up informal businesses such as spaza shops.

Setting up task teams, amending immigration regulations and ensuring that children’s births were registered within 30 days, were some of the ways in which the department was stemming the scourge of corruption, said Mr Tshwete.