The Border Management Authority (BMA) of South Africa is addressing the pervasive issue of corruption within its ranks, with Deputy Commissioner Jane Thupana revealing alarming statistics regarding the facilitation of illegal activities at the nation’s ports. 

This was revealed when a high-level delegation from the BMA’s Executive Committee went on a monitoring visit to the Durban Harbour on Wednesday. 

“With just over 2,500 employees on our books and running, on average, about 50 cases at a particular time, or disciplinary cases, particularly linked to facilitation of illegal people through our ports,” Thupana said. 

“Per quarter, on average, we have about 12 dismissals every three months, amounting to 48 dismissals in a year, and ever since BMA was established, over 20 employees have been dismissed.” 

Thupana said that was how seriously they dealt with corruption, adding that since these are criminal activities, those dismissed will be arrested and face the law. 

“That is how we are dealing with the issues of corruption, particularly in a reactive manner,” Thupana said. 

BMA Commissioner Dr Michael Masiapato said that to deal with some inherent problems related to corruption, the BMA ensures that every official goes through a vetting process. 

“We have started some work together with the State Security Agency to make sure that our colleagues are enrolled in a vetting process, which is also going to enable us to be able to deal with the issues around integrity going forward in terms of the officials of the organisation,” Masiapato said. 

He said that, particularly at land ports, as an operational measure, they have issued an instruction to all ports: entry is now restricted to legitimate travellers possessing the necessary documentation.

“What that effectively has done is assist us to deal with the facilitators in the port, but also it has actually assisted us to make sure that only those people that are the requisite documents are the people who will go and appear before an immigration officer,” Masiapato said.

“By actually implementing that basic administration activity that, on its own, has started to contribute towards dealing with issues of corruption across the port environment.”

Masiapato said that over the years, they have observed that the stamps used were basic and could be obtained from any bookshop, and could be duplicated.

He said they replaced all old stamps with new, highly secure ones on August 1. These new stamps feature an engraved BMA logo and the Big Five, and only work with special ink from Government Printing Works. Each numbered stamp is assigned to an individual immigration officer, who must use it exclusively and secure it in a safe. The stamp’s number is engraved into every passport, allowing the BMA to trace illegally stamped passports back to the officer responsible for disciplinary action.

Masiapato said that as a proactive measure, they partnered with the Special Investigating Unit and established the Border Management and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum. The forum aims to partner with all South Africans and the private sector to report corruption in port environments.

He added that they have integrated AI-based drones into their value chain. These drones fly across ports, from invisible heights to low levels, to detect activity. They help them identify illegal entry attempts and monitor their officials for any bribe solicitation. 

“We have started to move in terms of the bodycams so our officials, particularly in our top four, what I would call high-risk land ports, particularly, we’re talking about Beitbridge to Zim, Lebombo to Mozambique, Maseru Bridge to Lesotho, and Kopfontein to Botswana,” Masiapato said. 

“In those ports, we have colleagues who are operating with bodycams. So in this particular instance, those bodycams can give us audio and visual of the interaction our officials have with any of the travellers. What that enables us to do is to be able to see and be able to hear if any of our officials do some kind of nefarious activity, as they are supposed to be processing the people.”

thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za

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