‘Another step forward in cleaning up Home Affairs’: Minister welcomes fraud conviction of dismissed official
South Africa’s Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, has welcomed the conviction of a dismissed Home Affairs official, Dawn Pieterson, who was found guilty on nine counts of fraud and two counts of contravening the Births and Deaths Registration Act.
She abused her access to departmental records by opening funeral policies in the names of unsuspecting clients, nominating herself as a beneficiary, and then falsely declaring those individuals deceased, in order to cash in on policy payouts.
She is due to be sentenced on January 26, 2026.
Minister Schreiber said the case is part of a broader effort to root out corruption in the department.
“This latest successful conviction is another step forward in our ongoing work to clean up Home Affairs. It is the ninth conviction secured through the collaboration between the Department and law enforcement agencies. It also follows the dismissal of 37 officials since July 2024,” he said.
He commended the Counter Corruption unit for its role in securing the conviction, as well as the Hawks and other partners.
According to the Minister, Pieterson’s modus operandi highlights the urgency of accelerating the department’s digital transformation.
“Importantly, the modus operandi used in this case again confirms the fundamental importance of our digital transformation agenda. By fully automating and digitalising all departmental processes, as we are doing through the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) for visas and through Digital ID for civics services, we will eliminate the space for human discretion and interference exploited by criminals like Pieterson,” Schreiber explained.
“We are absolutely determined to both put criminal officials behind bars, while simultaneously using technology to close the loopholes they exploit. This is how we can defeat the scourge of corruption once and for all,” he added.
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