BALDWIN NDABA
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has announced stringent restrictions on applications for passports in his bid to stop local and international criminal syndicates making fraudulent use of the country’s travel document.
Motsoaledi’s announcement followed the arrest of a Pakistani-led syndicate which included locals and Home Affairs officials who were caught producing fraudulent passports in Krugersdorp in March this year.
Now, all South Africans wanting a passport will have to physically apply for at a particular Home Affairs office. They will have to personally collect at the same office. In the past, third parties were able to collect passports for other people but Motsoaledi brought this to a stop when he announced the new regulations in Pretoria on Thursday.
In his announcement, he said: “In recent months the SA passport has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Firstly, on the 24 March 2022, in our Krugersdorp office the nation saw us apprehending a Pakistani national and arresting him with some South African citizens and corrupt Home Affairs officials. All these people were working together to defraud the SA passport.
“Secondly and immediately thereafter, the story of ‘Lebogang from Bangladesh’ made headlines all over the media, including on social media.
“This angered a lot of South Africans while some turned it into jokes. What people don’t realise are the serious consequences and hardships that the country suffers when its passports are defrauded in this manner.
“The main one being that the integrity of the South African passport will be put into question, causing many hardship for South African travellers.
“It is for this reason that this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue,” he said.
Detailing measures to stop the fraudulent activities, he announced the first of three steps to be taken by the Department to secure the integrity of the passport, and make it foolproof for fraudulent acquisition.
The other two steps will be announced in due course.
He said people might have realised that when they applied for passports, they could collect them from any office in the country and they could also be collected by third parties.
“We are announcing that, unfortunately, this can no longer happen. The following measures will have to be followed:
· A passport can only be collected strictly from the office where it was applied for.
· Only the person who applied for that passport can come and collect it by activating it through a fingerprint.
“This is a method that is being used to collect Smart ID Cards. We had exempted passport collection from this method for two reasons;
- Many travellers found themselves in a hurry to travel
- Many of the travellers, especially in the business world, and other big institutions may not always have time to come to our offices. Unfortunately, this privilege is now being taken away,” Motsoaledi said.
He said for minor children, their parents or guardians who helped them to apply for that passport would be the only ones allowed to come and collect it and activate it using their own fingerprints.
“We must strongly warn that any passport collected using whatever method other than the ones announced will not be activated and hence will be of no use to the holder.
“We are aware that this will inconvenience some frequent travellers and some busy people who might not have time but we are appealing that everybody has to be prepared to readily pay this price for the integrity of our passports,” he said.
Motsoaledi urged passport holders to check passports for expiry at least once a month or for frequent travellers, every fortnight, saying he wanted to take this opportunity to dispel the myth of an emergency passport.
“There is nothing called an emergency passport for any South Africa travelling to another country. The so called emergency passport is actually a hand-written document available only to a South African who is stranded in another country. This document allows them to return home and when they arrive, its usefulness comes to an abrupt end.
“For any South African wishing to go to other countries, they have to apply for a passport following regular processes. We are, however, able to produce a passport in five to 13 days. Under certain, select circumstances, we may produce a passport within 24 hours.
“I must warn that this is very rare and the people will have to pay an arm and a leg for this to happen,” Motsoaledi warned.