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[FILE IMAGE]: Border Management Authority (BMA) official checking a travellers documents.
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber says a digitised system will strengthen efforts to combat fraud and corruption at South Africa’s borders.
Schreiber and Special Investigating Unit Head, Advocate Andy Mothibi, launched the Border Management and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum in Pretoria, today.
The initiative aims to curb corruption through collaboration with stakeholders.
Schreiber says automating entry and exit at all ports will close the gaps that allow for illegal activities.
“We are also automating entry and exit at all of South Africa’s ports of entry. This is a major reform. The Medium-Term Development Plan explicitly aims to achieve this first at the nine international airports and then at all land and seaports by the end of this administration. These reforms will deliver a systems revolution in border management and the immigration environment. No more papers that can go missing or be manipulated. No more photo swapping on a Green ID book. No more bribing an immigration officer to manipulate an outcome or to gain entry to our country illegally because you simply cannot bribe a computer,” says Schreiber.
Schreiber says state capture has opened the door to corruption in almost every sector within the country. He was speaking at the launch of the Border Management and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum (BMIACF) in Pretoria.
The department in collaboration with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) launched this initiative which aims to intensify efforts to combat corruption in the sector.
Schreiber says sophisticated syndicates have organised themselves within the Department of Home Affairs to extort and defraud both South Africans and immigrants.
DHA | Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum to combat crime at the various ports of entry:
