Barry Streek
The South Africa-Zimbabwe border is leaking like a sieve with more than 200 holes in the security fence around the Beitbridge border post, army patrols that only come on duty at 10pm and widespread fraud and corruption.
This has been reported by the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on home affairs.
“We saw many holes in the fence at Beitbridge, and we were told that the holes have been there for a long time, despite many pleas to the Department of Public Works to fix them,” the committee said in a report tabled in Parliament.
The Department of Home Affairs is meant to be doing everything possible to prevent illegal immigrants entering the country.
But the select committee concluded that “people jump the fence at border posts due to lack of control and personnel. Border posts are also ill-equipped”.
It found corruption: “Immigration officials are easily bribed as their salaries are low and the system followed at border posts is insufficient to stop organised crime. There is a lack of sufficient management in the immigration section at Beitbridge.”
The committee also criticised the lack of human resources in the Department of Home Affairs, especially in the immigration services section, and its insufficient budget, which led to a lack of computers, furniture, office space, cars and cellphones.
The regional director of home affairs in the Northern Province, MV Mabunda, who met the committee at Beitbridge in April, said three people a month in the province were dismissed from the department because of fraud. He said poor management at the border post was a contributing factor to the fraud.
“Officials indicated that Chinese and Pakistani people are crossing the Limpopo river at night. They are ferried across by syndicates,” the report read.
“When people enter South Africa without the proper documentation, it does not take them long to obtain documentation by fraudulent means.”
The head of immigration at Beitbridge told the committee that the fraud and corruption at the border post could not be controlled.
He attributed this to various factors including the lack of security at the gate: “There are more than 200 holes in the security fence around the border post” and “The South African National Defence Force only comes on duty at 10pm every night.”
Beitbridge is the largest port of entry into South Africa and 42 000 transit visas were issued for Zimbabwean citizens in 1999, and twice that number last year.
A shocking lack of facilities at five South African border posts with Botswana has been uncovered by the committee.
At the Bray border post used by 150 people every day, the committee found there were no toilets or running water and “there is also no shade for people to stand in, nor space inside the building for the public”.
Home affairs staff at Bray handled identity applications and registration of births but they “have to use the South African Police Service’s [SAPS] telephone and fax facilities, as they do not have their own”.
At the Mokopong border post, home affairs personnel share a building with the police because of the lack of office space, and they rely on the police to do their banking because they have no transport.
At the Makgobistad border post, where the border runs through the Barolong tribe many people jump the fence, including children from Botswana who attend school in South Africa.
At the Ramathlabama border post, “the electricity regularly cuts out, and this causes computer data to be lost and damaged. There is no back-up system for the computers, and technicians have to come from head office to assist; the computers are also not linked to the mainframe.”
At the Skilpadsnek border post, “the office is very small and ill-equipped. There are no telephones, and officials have to beg the SAPS when they need to phone. There are also no proper toilets,” the committee said in its report, which has been tabled in Parliament.
@Beating the odds
Despite being told he would never lead a productive life, a man with cerebal palsy is now a successful farmer
Suzan Chala
Against all odds Philane Zuma, a farmer in Howick in KwaZulu-Natal, lives a happy and successful life with his fiance. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was three months old.
Like many other disabled people, Zuma was ostracised by his community as a child and his teachers believed he would never live a successful life. He left home at the age of 13 to attend a special school that gave him hope for the future.
Cerebral palsy is a disorder affecting body movement and muscle coordination, caused by brain damage from early pregnancy to the age of three. At its most severe, it may result in virtually no muscle control, profoundly affecting movement and speech. The entire left side of Zuma’s body is paralysed.
As a child, Zuma was made to believe that he was different from other people but never met another person like him who could relate to his feelings of rejection and lack of self-confidence.
It wasn’t until he went to Ethembeni (place of hope) School for the Physically Disabled and Visually Impaired in Inchanga that he met other people with cerebral palsy. “That was when I realised that I am a normal human being, just like all other people,” he says.
At Ethembeni he met people who understood and “genuinely cared” for him. “I made friends with people other than my brothers for the first time in my life and learned to live with my condition without feeling different. But most importantly, I felt like I belonged somewhere,” he says.
Cerebral palsy can also cause developmental delay and learning disabilities. Zuma struggled to learn at Ethembeni. “He wasn’t doing well academically and was growing too old to be in this school,” says Danie Esterhuyse, former principal of Ethembeni. “Because he excelled in career studies, we sent him for a six-week chicken farming course which he had expressed interest in.”
Zuma was taught basic business administration skills and commercial farming. He knew a little about chicken farming, which he learnt from his uncle a subsistence chicken farmer with whom he lived.
“I had always liked chicken farming but had never considered commercial farming before,” Zuma says.
He started his business in 1997 with a loan from Ethembeni. He bought 100 chickens and today sells about 250 a day at R14 each.
He recently bought two farms and hopes to expand his business in both crop and stock farming.
He is also employed at the Ethembeni Educational and Training Trust as the head of its chicken farming division. He has trained and employed a cousin to run his farm for him.
Zuma uses his one hand to feed and slaughter his chickens. He also maintains a vegetable garden on his farm, proving that he is not completely disabled and can work even harder than most people.
He wants to be treated with respect and dignity. “People need to be educated that disabled people are human beings, like themselves,” he says.
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