Read the edited Opinion as published on Business Day
[Original unedited version below]
An inherent requirement to the functioning of any democratic government and one of the democratic values entrenched in the Constitution of South Africa is accountability. A duty of accountability is imposed as a Constitutional imperative upon organs of state, the Executive, the Judiciary and all public functionaries. Yet, lack of accountability within the Department of Home Affairs has been systemic and sadly accepted as inherent for decades.
As all his predecessors, the newly appointed Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber has vowed to clamp down on fraudulent activities within [his] Department.
Let’s be clear, corruption is a two faced coin. In all transactions there must be an offer and a demand. As with the saying “it takes two to tango”, a bribe needs a willing recipient and the capturing of a government department requires a corruptible keeper and a complacent system. The issue of corruption within the DHA is a long standing issue of custodianship.
Between January and April 2024, with a persisting reported “backlog” of applications (which according to now Minister Schreiber are effectively closer to 306,000) the DHA reported to the PMG that: “The department experiences challenges concerning the legitimacy of relationships being claimed and cited in the applications. It must be noted that some foreign nationals have taken advantage and follow corrupt methods to legitimise themselves, family members, friends and others… 85% of the backlog falls under these two categories where massive corruption and collusion was detected.”
Mistrust and suspicion admittedly defining the processing of visa and permit applications. This is a common denominator indicative of a culture where xenophobia can reign rife and where the public has lost faith in the Department.
Lack of resources and of appropriate legal training, corruption and mismanagement are not a novelty nor a product of the lockdown. The backlog only worsened and made more conspicuous the pre-existing condition of disarray of the DHA. The historical failure to adequately train bureaucrats in the values and principles of constitutional governance, policies driven by a security cluster oriented frustrated response to immigration issues, coupled with complacency have defined and lowered the standards tearing through the relationships between the Department, citizens and foreigners.
With the objective of fighting the scourge of corruption, government introduced over the years several initiatives to prevent it and with the objective of systemically rooting it out. A National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) was developed to meet international standards, the Anti-Corruption Task Team (ACTT) was established to fast track high-priority investigations and prosecutions on corruption-related matters through a multi-disciplinary and integrated operational approach and within the DHA the Counter Corruption Unit was born.
Nonetheless, although South Africa has implemented and promoted strategies for preventing corruption, their effective application remains challenging in practice and the DHA represents a blatant example of this short-fall.
Over the past years, a number of causes célèbre has drawn widespread attention by the public and the media bringing under the spotlight the cracks within the DHA and its foundations. The Lubisi Report, preceded by the amaBhungane investigative effort and report, partially unveiling some of the rotten debris this Home [Affairs] stands on. The scale and extent of the denounced internal corrosion almost equivalent to the unwelcome opening of a Pandora’s box due to its complexity and ramifications.
Surprisingly, the names that stick with the public are mostly reflective of only one side of the coin: the Gupta brothers, their alleged “mastermind” Ashu Chawla, Pastor Bushiri and his wife Mary, actress Leva Andrejevaite…to name but a few. All cases that due to their nature are easily weaponised to deflect the attention from the root issues of the DHA’s own failed constitutional mandate. As a consequence, foreigners in general often bear the brunt on all sides of these storms, becoming easy targets of xenophobic sentiments.
On the other side, the names of the South African, often high ranking (Directors and Chief Directors included) duty-bound officials actively involved in these and other less newsworthy cases, when made public, quickly fall into oblivion and silence, as rarely disciplinary action when implemented is followed by criminal proceedings to their full extent.
Those names only sporadically resurface in enquires made by the PMG Home Affairs Portfolio Committee when duly seeking answers from the Department on the status and progress of these investigations. Still in March 2024, the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee expressed “concern to hear that some of the implicated [officials] are still in their posts, representing a risk to the investigation and which could lead to further problems in the processing of permits and visas”. Corrupt officials who know they will not be held accountable, take advantage of the situation to continue with their illegal activities by using the power they have.
Lengthy and costly disciplinary hearings that, if successful, lead to the suspension or the firing of the involved officials and which, in some instances, are undercut by resignations, seem to be dramatically disproportionate remedies if compared to the many unlawful deportations and human-rights violations, often tearing families apart, which the Department has allowed to take place under its own watch.
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Yet, the Department of Home Affairs seems to have recurrently defeated all odds by complacently surviving within its own ruins surrounded by rubber walls of omertà within its ranks, immune to its own disease and like Pilate washing its hands unfettered.
Accountability in any Government Department should start from the top and extends to transparency and compliance with the Constitution and Court Orders. Too often the Department of Home Affairs disregards Court Orders displaying a dangerous contempt of the judiciary and its role. Lack of good leadership, weak organisational culture ,inadequate accountability systems are all contributing factors to the spread of fraud and corruption.
In his Budget Vote Speech, Dr Schreiber, recently stated: “the Department is currently inundated with costly court cases that it cannot afford. In many instances, these cases stem from a simple inability to process applications in a timely manner, forcing clients to seek judicial relief. In other cases, they reflect a serious breakdown in trust between the Department and stakeholders. This crippling situation cannot be allowed to continue. It consumes valuable resources that can be better spent on other critical priorities.”. This harsh reality has been blindly disregarded for too long creating an unnecessary burden on the judiciary and the Courts for years.
Each time the glasshouse has new keepers we are left wondering whether they will effectively manage the necessary restorations and overhaul, or be overcome by the same iron curtain that has so effectively held the Department hostage within its own walls? Only time will tell.
by Claudia Pizzocri | CEO at Eisenberg & Associates Inc.