Minister Leon Schreiber: Launch of Border and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum

Good morning to the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Njabulo Nzuza
The Director-General of the Department of Home Affairs, Tommy Makhode Acting Commissioner of the Border Management Authority, Major-General David Chilembe
The National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi The Head of the Special Investigating Unit, Advocate Andy Mothibi
The Head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya
The Former Director-General in the Presidency, Dr Cassius Lubisi
General Manager for Border Intelligence at the State Security Agency, Louise Dreyer CEO of Business Against Crime, Dr. Graham Wright
Joint Interim Leaders of Corruption Watch, Moira Campbell and Lord Ntambw Industry Stakeholders
Esteemed Guests

We have assembled here today to launch the Border Management and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum.

But what makes this launch unique and exciting, is that we will not be talking about what we intend to do.

We are here to talk about the major successes we are already achieving – and how we will build on those successes to deliver the most comprehensive corruption clean-up our country has ever seen.

To do so, we need to acknowledge the scale of the challenge we face.

Corruption is a scourge that has spread its tentacles into every facet of our society.

If there is one phrase that defined public life in South Africa during the last decade, it is the term “state capture.”

This pernicious and corrosive form of corruption made its way to the very top of our public institutions.

Yet, the reality of what our country faces today as the Government of National Unity seeks to rebuild in the wake of state capture, has perhaps been somewhat neglected.

But the shape of the corruption we are dealing with in the wake of state capture, is no less pernicious and corrosive.

In many ways, state capture broke the proverbial dam wall, enabling corruption to flood into almost every nook and cranny of our society.

Once the top echelons of the political establishment were seen to endorse the corruption of the very highest institutions of state, a message cascaded throughout society that extortion, fraud and theft has just become “how we do things now” in South Africa.

The construction mafia is one example of how this pattern has spread to different sectors of society.

But it is by no means the only such syndicate that has infiltrated and merged with the system it seeks to subvert.

South African society today is characterized by the syndicatisation of any process where value can be extracted.

The border management and immigration sector has not been spared.

As the work of Dr Lubisi and his colleagues painstakingly revealed, sophisticated syndicates organised themselves within Home Affairs to extort and defraud both South Africans and immigrants.

The same can be said for other critical functions in all areas where value can be extracted through syndicated behaviour.

In the wake of state capture, the biggest risk we face today is of becoming a syndicate society.

In a syndicate society, access to services is regulated not by the institutions of the democratic state, but by embedded syndicates that have captured not only the heights of state power – but also every level down to the tender that awards mops at Eskom power plants, and determining who gets an EPWP job in a municipal ward.

In such a society, the domain de jure assigned by the Constitution to the state, becomes the de facto domain of the syndicate.

Where nepotism replaces merit in appointment decisions, where public goods are exploited for private gain, and where the barrel of a gun replaces the rule of law.

Once we understand that it is the aim of syndicates to not only exploit the system but to merge with it, we also begin to understand that the many failures of service delivery caused by corruption, are not accidental.

Where syndicates take control, they deliberately break the system.

From the perspective of these criminals, an immigration system that creates loopholes to extort bribes, is not broken.

It is working exactly as they intend.

In many cases, the rot runs so deep that it is misguided to regard corruption as something separate from the system of governance.

Corrupt syndicates become so deeply enmeshed with the operations of government that they can become the system.

It is for this reason that our efforts to defeat corruption will never succeed if we only seek to treat the symptoms.

What we require is an approach that tackles the problem at its root by enforcing accountability for corruption and simultaneously reforming the system itself to close the loopholes and weaknesses that criminals exploit.

I am encouraged to indicate today that the leaders gathered in this room, and the institutions they represent, are indeed making progress on both of these fronts.

Collectively, the Special Investigating Unit, the Department of Home Affairs, the Border Management Authority, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation and the National Prosecuting Authority are enforcing accountability in the border and immigration environment.

In recent months, we have seen some of the most decisive action taken to date against corruption in our country, including through the important work done by the technical experts on the Multi-Disciplinary Task Team to implement the recommendations contained in the Lubisi report.

Between July 2024 and February 2025, 27 officials have been dismissed from the Department of Home Affairs for a range of offences including fraud, corruption and sexual misconduct.

We announced 18 of these dismissal in November last year and, since then, another nine officials have been dismissed.

Once appeals that are currently ongoing are completed, this number is likely to increase further still.

The Department of Home Affairs is also concluding the appointment of a permanent Deputy Director-General for Human Resources, and it is my expectation that this person will further intensify our quest to rid Home Affairs of bad apples.

Thanks to the work of our partners in law enforcement, eight officials have already been convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 18 years, while criminal prosecution of another 19 officials is underway.

In one notable case, a Pakistani National, Afran Ahmed, who charged foreign nationals R45,000 per South African passport, was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in the Krugersdorp magistrate Court, Gauteng.

At the BMA over the same period, 10 officials have been dismissed for corruption, and one for aiding and abetting.

Another 45 BMA cases are at various stages in the disciplinary process and could also result in further dismissals.

Just as important as the dismissals and prosecutions themselves, is the pace at which they are taking place.

In this regard, I want to warmly congratulate the Multi-Disciplinary Task Team for achieving a major legal breakthrough in the Labour Court.

It was in one of our cases, that a new precedent was set that allows the appointment of external chairpersons for disciplinary hearings, changing the interpretation of collective agreements in place since 2001 and enabling more impartial disciplinary processes across the whole of government.

This is a major victory, and it is the model that government must now follow in all that we do – precisely because it offers a powerful new avenue to prevent members of corrupt syndicates from protecting each other.

This is an example of how we are charting a new course in the fight against corruption.

The message to crooked officials is clear: we are cleaning house and when we catch you, you will be out of the door within a matter of weeks.

Importantly, our message also makes it clear that we apply the rule of law without fear or favour.

Shortly after assuming office, I initiated a process in terms of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act that resulted in the revocation of the South African citizenship that was irregularly granted to a senior member of the Gupta family.

Further processes are now underway to ensure justice is done for the way in which Home Affairs was abused to further the interests of state capture accused.

The sum total of this work represents the biggest and most decisive crackdown on corruption to date in the immigration sector.

By working together every day, we are painstakingly washing the stain of corruption and state capture off of Home Affairs, so that we can transform the Department and the BMA into the proud institutions they deserve to be.

But that is not all.

At the same time, we are also committed to the kind of systems reform that will close the space for discretion, that enables fraud and corruption in the first place.

In this quest, our greatest ally is technology.

One of the fundamental pillars of our commitment to digital transformation, is to employ technology in ways that prevent and detect corruption to uproot corrupt networks altogether.

The work of the MDTT has already shown the power of data analytics.

But the reality is that, for as long as we have paper-based visa documents, for as long as we use manual, paper-based processes, and for as long as decisions are wide-open to human discretion and interference, the space for corruption will continue to exist.

That is why our digital transformation vision will systematically close those gaps.

Paper visas are being replaced by an Electronic Travel Authorisation featuring Artificial Intelligence and machine learning-based adjudication.

Paper documents are being replaced by secure digital documents, including the digital ID system announced by the President during the State of the Nation Address.

The green ID book will be phased out and replaced by the far more secure smart ID and digital ID.

And we are automating entry-and-exit at all of South Africa’s ports-of-entry.

The Medium-Term Development Plan aims to achieve this at all airports first, and at all land and sea ports by the end of this administration.

These reforms will deliver a systems revolution in the border management and immigration environment.

No more papers that can go missing or be manipulated. No more photo-swopping on green ID books.
No more bribing an immigration officer to manipulate an outcome, or to gain entry to our country illegally.

Because you cannot bribe a computer and an electronic gate. Ladies and gentlemen,
If the previous decade of our national life was defined by state capture, and if our present is defined by the risk of becoming a syndicate society in the wake of state capture, then what do we want our future to be defined by?

The answer must surely be that we want South Africa’s next decade to be defined by a systems revolution.

This would entail a concerted process of enforcing accountability for corruption, while reforming systems in such a way that the hold of corrupt networks over government processes and services, is broken.

This is exactly what we embarked upon in the Home Affairs ecosystem.

We recognise that the system as it is currently designed requires not only patchwork changes, but fundamental reform.

Not only because of corruption, but also because of resource constraints, inefficiency and the risks posed to national security by ineffective and outdated border and immigration management.

Ladies and gentlemen, Today is not a talk shop.
It is not a promise of what will be done.

It is a stocktaking of what is already being achieved.

In a country that is deeply tired of corruption, it is a source of true inspiration that this forum is walking the talk.

As we speak, corrupt officials are being disciplined and fired. Prosecutions are following.

And systemic change is underway to rid our institutions of the corrupt syndicates that seek to hold us all hostage.

I know that all of us in this room love our country; therefore, we hate what corruption has done to it.

That is why we are pursuing an unprecedented clean-up to enforce accountability, as well as a systems revolution that will demonstrate the power of collaboration and digital transformation to uproot corruption.

It is a vision that we must fulfil, because succeeding in a sector as fraught as immigration, will serve as a beacon of hope to our society that corruption can be dealt with.

That accountability can be enforced.

And that systemic reform through digital transformation that fundamentally reshapes and modernises the systems of government, can roll back capture by syndicates and defeat corruption once and for all.

Thank you.

Enquiries 
Siya Qoza
Cell: 082 898 1657

Duwayne Esau
Spokesperson for the Minister 
Cell: 077 606 9702

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