Corrupt officials are aiding aliens

GRAHAMSTOWN -- Many illegal aliens are able to obtain ostensibly valid South African identity and travel documentation through corrupt Home Affairs officials, says Home Affairs assistant director in charge of the aliens control directorate, Willem Vorster.

Vorster says in an affidavit to the high court here that corrupt officials make false entries into the population register, and illegal aliens are then immediately able to apply for late registration of birth and for other identity documents.

Vorster's affidavit was made in response to a high court application where two men, who it later emerged were illegal aliens, asked that it declare them to be bona fide South African citizens. The two men brought the application when Home Affairs began investigating them and closed off their main source of income by informing business associates they were contravening the Aliens Control Act by conducting business with them.

Vorster says illegal aliens in possession of South African identity documents often tripped themselves up during investigations because they seldom had access to the information entered into the population register on their behalf by corrupt officials.

They often therefore contradicted the information on record or were not able to say who their parents were or where they had been born.

He said his directorate investigated Julius Kariuki and Clement Kamau -- who lived here for six years under their South African aliases Njunguna Julius and Clement Khumalo -- after they discovered there was no record of the people named as their respective parents. Both their birth certificates, in the name of Julius and Khumalo, were issued in 1996 following an application for late registration of birth.

There were also discrepancies in the disclosure of their places of birth and, whereas there was a record of their arrival in South Africa, there was no record of a prior departure. He said it was clear their birth, ID and passport documents were "forged, false or spurious". -- DDR