EFF flags R52m spent on deporting illegal immigrants in five months

The EFF has raised concerns about the R52.8m spent on deporting illegal immigrants between April and August.

Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber in a recent Q&A session in parliament said 19,750 undocumented immigrants were sent back to their countries of origin, costing the government R52,817,656. This represents an increase from the 10,808 deportations in 2022/23.

EFF MP Thapelo Mogale raised concerns about the amount, suggesting the funds could have been better used to strengthen border management and prevent unauthorised entries of foreigners.

“The department is spending excessive amounts of money on the deporting of illegal immigrants in just a few months. If we were to look at it over a period of five years, I’m convinced we would’ve spent a billion or more,” Mogale told TimesLIVE.

“That is money that could be used for other things. We have a border management agency which is grossly underfunded. If the border management agency is underfunded, then you’ll experience an influx of undocumented people coming into the country.”

Mogale argued that documenting immigrants would be a more practical approach rather than spending heavily on deportations.

“These people are here already, and now we have to spend millions to get rid of them. The EFF’s solution is to document these people because they are already here. In that way, we’ll be able to identify those who are undesirable, those who may have criminal records, fugitives of justice, and those who ran away from their countries of origin because of criminal activities. We’ll be able to keep those kinds of things through that process.”

The top five countries of origin for deported individuals in 2022/23 were Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In August, 95 Libyans were deported after being arrested in White River, Mpumalanga.

TimesLIVE