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Lebombo Border Post between SA and Mozambique.
Hawkers from neighbouring Mozambique who frequently cross the border to buy goods in South Africa are accusing the security cluster at the Lebombo Border Post, in Mpumalanga of extortion.
They say this happens even when they submit all required documents to border officials.
They claim that they are continuously harassed by the police at the border gate demanding money. One of the Hawkers who wanted to remain anonymous for safety reasons says they are always forced to pay money.
“Now, we are getting scared because we have to hide money from the thieves and we have to hide money from the police, which doesn’t make sense. The police are the people who are supposed to give us security with our money and our property, but when we are at Lebombo it doesn’t happen that way. When we see a police officer coming we get scared because either they will take you money or harass us for cash,” says one hawker.
The Border Management Authority has acknowledged that there are still challenges at the Lebombo Border Post.
“The border environment, unfortunately even as we have inherited the work and we inherited the environment, there has been a lot of challenges related to corruption, particularly as Border Management Authority,” says BMA Commissioner, Mike Masiapato.
He says to be able to deal with some of the problems, section 13.3 of the BMA gives them the authority to make sure that every official goes through a vetting process.
“We have started to work together with the state security agency to make sure that our colleagues are rolled to vetting process which will enable us to be able to deal with the issues,” he adds.
