‘We will get you’: Nzuza warns Home Affairs officials colluding with illegal foreigners

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Njabulo Nzuza has sent a stern warning to officials who collude with undocumented foreigners to give them South African identity documents.

This comes after the sentencing of former Home Affairs official Judy Zuma, who was slapped with an effective 12-year imprisonment for being part of a syndicate that delivered fraudulent passports to foreign nationals who did not qualify for the documents.

Zuma operated with foreign nations in a syndicate colluding with South African citizens to assist foreign nationals from Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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“The foreign nationals fraudulently replaced the owner’s photos with theirs and assumed the names of the South African citizens,” Colonel Katlego Mogale said.

In a media briefing by African National Congress (ANC) leaders on the last day of the NEC Lekgotla on Tuesday, Nzuza said Zuma had processed about 192 passports between 28 May and 12 June 2021.

They paid her R4,000 for each passport.

“We welcome the arrest of Judy Zuma. We had been pursuing this matter for some time. Zuma had issued about 192 passports between May and June 2021,” he said.

Nzuza said this was not the only case the Department of Home Affairs was pursuing. He sent a warning to other officials who might be involved in the corruption.

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“It marks our commitment in dealing with whatever collusion that allows illegal people to enter the country.

“This is a call to other people who are involved in this that you might think you are getting away with it, We will definitely get you. We will make sure you suffer the consequences just like Zuma.”

Home Affairs and BMA

He said the government was working to capacitate the Border Management Authority (BMA) to curb the problem of illegal migrants.

“The issues of borders [are] receiving attention. We were expecting to have about 11,115 personnel sent to the borders, we have only been able to send about 2,566. We need to capacitate the BMA to carry out its responsibilities.”

In June, the BMA deployed 400 new junior guards who had been in training since September 2023 to the country’s borders.

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The BMA has authorised the guards to search, seize and arrest.

“You can’t grow the economy of the country if the country is not secured. If you do not have proper security to secure the country, you have a problem,” said Nzuza.

“If you have 100 million worth of cigarettes coming through Beitbridge and the BMA is not there to stop that, you are losing revenue.”