Home Affairs official suspended for sale of fraudulent birth certificates

ANOTHER document scandal has rocked the Department of Home Affairs in KwaZulu-Natal. This time, birth certificates were allegedly sold to foreigners for the sum of R15 000 each. 

The Independent on Saturday has learnt that a senior Home Affairs official, who was previously implicated in the sale of passports, is now under investigation for his role in manufacturing and selling the birth certificates.  

He is believed to have sold the official documents to foreigners, mainly Bangladeshis, and generated R2.9 million.

Whistleblowers say that the official appeared to have gained unauthorised access to the computer system where he made up the fraudulent certificates. However, he apparently blew his cover when he left some of the birth certificates at the station where he had been working. 

Thulani Mavuso, Spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs & Deputy Director-General: Operations, said that an investigation is still underway. 

“An official of Home Affairs (who is not a senior manager) is being investigated for allegedly registering births without following the correct procedure. As the investigation is not yet finalised, disciplinary procedures have not yet been instituted against the official.”

Mavuso said that all “incorrectly registered births” would be verified to determine the nationality of the persons registered. 

“If it is found that persons paid for birth certificates, criminal action will be taken against them, as these documents would have been fraudulently obtained. In cases where birth certificates are wrongly issued to foreigners, the relevant ID numbers will be blocked and cancelled, and they will not be able to use the birth certificates, as the identity numbers will no longer exist,” he said. 

He couldn't confirm whether or not money had exchanged hands for these official documents as the investigation was ongoing, and has urged anyone with information to contact the department’s Counter Corruption Branch. 

At one point, insiders feared the official might have fled the country by using a fraudulent passport. However, Mavuso confirmed that the official is currently suspended as a result of another issue, and therefore not missing.

The issue of fraudulent birth certificates caused a national outcry last year when it emerged that Miss South Africa contestant Chidimma Adetshina had been fraudulently registered as a South African citizen at birth. Senior Home Affairs officials as well as her Nigerian father and Mozambican mother were implicated. Adetshina dropped out and went on to win in the Miss Universe Nigeria pageant. 

Meanwhile, sources claim that the man investigated for issuing the fraudulent certificates, was earlier this year the man was involved in an accident while driving a departmental vehicle, which he failed to report. He allegedly had the official vehicle repaired privately, and also promised to fix the damage caused to the other vehicle involved in the incident. 

However, the repairs were never done and the matter only came to light when the Sheriff of the Court approached the Home Affairs employee on behalf of the accident victim.

The latest scandals at Home Affairs in KZN follow a slew of document-related irregularities which occurred this year. 

In April the Independent on Saturday revealed that the passports of mainly Indian men were disappearing from two Home Affairs offices in Durban, this after the legal owners had received messages to collect the documents. 

At the time whistleblowers alleged that senior officials were under investigation for their alleged role in a syndicate which stole legal passports and sold them to foreigners. 

A month later in May more than 200 identity documents destined for applicants in Pietermaritzburg vanished while in transit, somewhere between Pretoria and their destination in KZN. 

The Department of Home Affairs has confirmed that several investigations relating to KZN were currently underway. 

Nationally, the Department has been plagued by fraud and corruption over the years but In September Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber announced that they were finally making inroads in the fight against crime.  

“Individual accountability is the first building block of our approach to washing the stain of corruption and state capture from not only the Department of Home Affairs, but the entire ecosystem that includes the Border Management Authority (BMA) and the Government Printing Works (GPW). Through holding accountable people involved in corruption both inside and outside the Department, we are dismantling the syndicates that took hold over many years,” he said.