Oppenheimers’ VIP customs legal battle still not over

The Oppenheimer family’s Fireblade Aviation facility at OR Tambo International Airport will still not be able to render an exclusive customs and immigration service for international VIPs, despite winning a series of legal battles against the home affairs department.

Judge Sulet Potterill on Friday refused new Home Affairs Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, home affairs director-general Mkhuseli Apleni and Denel leave to appeal against her earlier ruling in favour of Fireblade and granted an enforcement order to Fireblade.

The judge ruled in October that one of Dlodlo’s predecessors, Malusi Gigaba, had granted permission for the department to run an immigration service at Fireblade’s seven-star terminal at OR Tambo, that the decision was of force and effect and could be implemented by Fireblade.

She rejected Gigaba’s denial that permission had been granted and argument that the facility was unconstitutional as it should be available to the public at large and required a competitive public tender process as “astonishing, untenable, palpably untrue and nonsensical”.

Her order will remain suspended due to the department of home affair’s automatic right of appeal against the enforcement order.

Home affairs said it intended petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against Potterill’s October ruling.

The department already renders customs and immigration services to international VIP’s using private aircraft at the Lanseria, Kruger Mpumalanga and Pilansberg airports, but opposes a similar facility at OR Tambo.

Fireblade, which offered to cover all costs for the service, had invested millions over the past four years to get permission from all government role players and to create a “sterile” immigration section. Its losses have accumulated to over R372.7 million which, it said, was to the detriment of South Africa’s economy as a whole.

Potterill rejected the minister’s argument that the department did not have a fair hearing and that Fireblade had applied to run a “parallel port of entry”.

She said no other court would find that the Immigration Act did not permit the establishment of a facility which was not available to the public at large or that a private facility at Fireblade would violate the rights of persons privileged enough to travel internationally on commercial aircraft and were processed at the main terminal.

– ilsedl@citizen.co.za

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