Posts

Home Affairs to open refugee offices after two-year closure

By Tariro WashinyiraFirst published on GroundUp More than two years after closing in person services due to the Covid pandemic, the Department of Home Affairs has announced it is reopening its Refugee Reception Offices. Since 26 March 2020, there has been no way for refugees to apply for asylum, and people who already had refugee Read more >

Arrests made but more work needed at DHA

By Thato Mahlangu A sting operation by the police led to the arrest of a corrupt official of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) on 9 January 2020. Home affairs minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said in a statement he welcomed the arrest of immigration official Sam Langa who was arrested for demanding a bribe from Read more >

CW contributes to Home Affairs’ white paper

On Monday 18 February 2019 Corruption Watch made submissions on the 2019 white paper on Home Affairs, after the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) put out the call for comments towards the end of January. The deadline was 18 February. The white paper is part of the DHA’s repositioning programme that, it says, will align Read more >

CW raises concerns over unchecked corruption at refugee centre

Corruption Watch (CW) has today written to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs in respect of the rampant corruption and maladministration that continues unabated at the Desmond Tutu Refugee Reception Centre in Marabastad, Pretoria – a dire state of affairs which has recently caused committee members to discuss the need for urgent steps to be Read more >

Zim parents must buy fake permits for schoolchildren

South Africa’s home affairs department is not immigrant-friendly. At least, not to immigrants who are ordinary people trying to make a modest living. If you’re wealthy, it may be another story entirely. Our Project Lokisa report, released in November 2016, exposed rampant corruption in Home Affairs’ Marabastad refugee offices, where people were forced to pay Read more >

CW: revamped Marabastad RRO will offer better services

17 February 2017 Corruption Watch supports the new and improved systems launched today at the refurbished Marabastad Refugee Reception Office in Pretoria. The revamp is intended to address queue management and security concerns, among other issues, and introduce an automated booking system and paperless processes. These changes are long overdue as in the past, this Read more >

Setting the record straight on Lokisa launch

Yesterday we released our report on corruption in the Home Affairs immigration system. Titled Project Lokisa: Asylum at a Price, the report was launched on a piece of land over the road from the Marabastad refugee reception office in Pretoria. The launch was notable for the absence of the key actor in the story – Read more >

CW exposes widespread corruption at Home Affairs

For the past two years Corruption Watch, with a number of partners, has been investigating corruption in the immigration section of the Home Affairs department. Today we released our report, titled Project Lokisa: Asylum at a Price, at a gathering outside the Marabastad refugee reception office, and the picture it paints is disturbing.     We Read more >

Widespread corruption at Home Affairs shown in CW report

22 November 2016 Corruption at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), according to a new report, Project Lokisa: Asylum at a Price, released by Corruption Watch today, is now so endemic that only a concerted effort by multiple stakeholders can hope to curb it. The DHA has failed to respond to any of the attempts Read more >