Details of new passport stamps: South Africa moves to combat forgery, corruption at borders
New stamps, introduced at South Africa’s borders this month, are meant to eradicate the widespread misuse of the previous stamps at the ports of entry.
This was said on Sunday by the commissioner of the Border Management Authority, Michael Masiapato, at a press conference in Pretoria, where he released the BMA’s report on the first quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, focusing on the period from 1 April to 30 June 2025.
“In this regard, we collaborated with Government Printing Works and designed the new stamps with the highest security standards, including the BMA logo to prevent tampering, forgery, and unauthorised use. Before the introduction of the new stamps, all key stakeholders across the criminal justice system and the border management ecosystem were consulted and engaged on the matter,” he said.
The withdrawal of the old stamps was carried out concurrently with the distribution of the new ones.
“Each of the immigration officers have been allocated a specific stamp with its unique number linked to each officer in order to trace back should their allocated stamp be found to facilitate illegal migration into the country,” said Masiapato.
“Whilst we started with immigration-based stamps, we are now embarking on redesigning new stamps for other specialised functions such as agriculture, health and environment.
“As the BMA, we would like to indicate that it is the responsibility of the traveller to ensure that their passports are correctly and lawfully processed at official ports of entry to avoid being refused entry or deported, declared undeniable or even arrested,” he emphasised.
Regarding conventional border law enforcement work as undertaken by the border guards, Masiapato said during the period under review, a total of 9,954 persons were intercepted, apprehended and deported as they were attempting to enter the country illegally.
“Of the 9,954 persons, 5,826 were undocumented, 2,127 were inadmissible, and 2,001 were undesirables. In this instance, the majority of the intercepted and deported individuals were Basotho, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans. Incrementally, since July 2022, the border guards have been able to stop about 496,622 people who attempted to enter South Africa illegally,” said Masiapato.
“In this quarter, our border law enforcement team also intercepted and handed over to SAPS a total of 15 high powered suspected stolen vehicles for further handling.”
Incrementally, since July 2022, the border guards intercepted over 349 vehicles which were meant to be smuggled out of the country by criminal syndicates.
Additionally, in dealing with the illicit trade which negatively affects the economy, Masiapato said border guards seized about 32 bales of counterfeit clothing and 201 pairs of counterfeit footwear with an estimated value of more than R1 million.
In terms of document fraud, 14 passports bearing fraudulent immigration stamps were identified and confiscated, further illustrating ongoing attempts to undermine national security and immigration controls.
This report released by Masiapato on Sunday was reviewed by members of the Border Technical Committee as well as the Inter-Ministerial Consultative Committee (IMCC) chaired by the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber.
jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za
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