How asylum seekers are cash cows for corrupt officials
A new Corruption Watch report says there is endemic corruption in the Department of Home Affairs and among other officials asylum seekers encounter
A new report by Corruption Watch alleges endemic corruption in the Department of Home Affairs. In Project Lokisa: Asylum at a Price, Corruption Watch says it has received 314 complaints since 2012, relating to applications for asylum or refugee status and other immigration-related processes. The report says 80% of these complaints involved refugee reception offices, where staff involved include home affairs officials, security guards, administrators and interpreters. Police — metro and South African Police Service officers — were implicated in 17%. Demands for bribes for issuing asylum and refugee permits accounted for 74%. SA has the highest number of pending asylum claims, with 1,096,100 people waiting for their claims to be processed. That is about a third of the global total of 3.2-million. Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis says those asking for bribes vary from the security guard who extracts R100 for allowing the refugee to enter the gate of the documentation cen...
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