Home Affairs and the Border Management Authority (BMA) have given Parliament conflicting explanations about who is responsible for maintaining South Africa’s list of banned foreigners, after the Auditor-General flagged cases of people declared undesirable at the border who were never added to the register.
Neither institution could tell MPs how many people had been affected, explain what caused the failures or account for what happened to those travellers after they were processed at the border.
The list, known as the V-list, records people declared prohibited or undesirable under the Immigration Act. Its purpose is undermined if people declared undesirable are not entered into the system.
At a meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs last week, chairperson Mosa Steve Chabane confronted officials from both institutions over their conflicting accounts.
“It’s a matter that we can observe, that both yourself and the BMA are unable to give us an accurate detail,” Chabane told Home Affairs director-general Thommy Makhode.
The disagreement emerged after ANC MP Nombuso Elizabeth Mtolo asked the BMA to explain the Auditor-General’s findings.
“On the undesirable travellers, Chairperson, what caused these failures, and what measures are being taken to prevent their recurrence and ensure accountability?” Mtolo asked.
BMA Assistant Commissioner Lusane Fouche told MPs that maintaining the V-list was not the authority’s responsibility.
“With regards to the V-listing, the maintenance of the V-list is the responsibility of the Department of Home Affairs,” Fouche said.
She said Home Affairs and the BMA held quarterly workshops and that the issue had been discussed at their most recent meeting.
A joint task team dealing with the movement control system was “looking at ways to improve the maintenance of the V-listing going forward”, she said.
But Chabane was not satisfied with the explanation and pressed the BMA on who was accountable for the failures.
Deputy Commissioner for Operations David Chilem repeated that the list remained under Home Affairs.
“Basically, in summary, the V-listing is with the Department of Home Affairs. It has not been handed over to us. It’s still done by them, because if there is a person that needs to be listed, it’s done by the department. But the V-listing is something that has not been handed over to the BMA. It is still with the Department of Home Affairs,” Chilembe said.
Chabane said the explanation contradicted what the committee understood about the failures identified by the Auditor-General.
“I think we’ve got a different explanation. There was a concern that was identified by the Auditor-General on undesirable people who were processed through the borderline, and they could not be included in the V-list,” he said.
The confusion deepened during the afternoon session, when Makhode gave MPs a different account of responsibility for border control.
He said the function had been transferred to the BMA under the legal changes governing the two institutions.
“In terms of the functions, port control now resides under the BMA. So it’s a function that is with the BMA, and to that extent we’ve moved that function to the BMA, including the officials that were working in that environment,” Makhode said.
He said the operations room remained with Home Affairs, which continued to provide information technology support and maintain the facility.
Makhode said the BMA had written to the department indicating that it was “not ready to take over those functions” until 31 October.
“It’s a function that, in terms of the law, has now been migrated to the BMA. However, we’re still providing support in terms of IT, including maintenance for the ops room that physically remains at our building,” he said.
He acknowledged that the V-list problems “are not new issues”.
He undertook to work with BMA Commissioner Michael Masiapato to provide a joint response and formally address the Auditor-General’s findings.
The committee was left without a clear explanation of who was ultimately responsible for ensuring that undesirable travellers were recorded on the V-list.
The officials did not provide MPs with a figure for the number of people affected, identify the causes of the failures or explain what had happened to those travellers after they were processed at the border.
Chabane said the committee would return to the matter at its next in-person meeting.
“The BMA could not even account to the questions,” he said.
The dispute raises questions about accountability during the transfer of border-control functions from Home Affairs to the BMA, particularly where failures could undermine the enforcement of immigration restrictions.
The institutions’ promised joint response will need to clarify who was responsible for the missing entries, how many cases were involved and what corrective measures have been taken.