Pretoria - A senior Home Affairs official in Pretoria, Elisha Matsipa, was on Monday arrested for “putting South Africa at risk” by fraudulently selling ID documents for as much as R23 000.
And the department has warned other employees involved in this type of crime to stop immediately as they too would face the same fate.
After a prolonged investigation, the Hawks and the department eventually got their man, arresting the 43-year-old assistant director moments after he had reported for work.
He was settling in for the day in his office when the Hawks cracked the whip on corruption and pounced on him at the department’s offices in Sophie de Bruyn Street in the city centre.
Matsipa is believed to be part of a syndicate selling South African ID documents for between R3 000 and R23 000.
The official’s arrest is seen as just the tip of the iceberg, as the department believes that at least 42 other people were part of the syndicate – and all have been warned they would be arrested soon.
His co-accused, Pakistani national Wahdat Hussain, 30, had been arrested earlier in the day, following the investigation by the Hawks and the department’s counter-corruption team.
Both men appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in the city.
The matter was postponed to Monday for a bail application.
The pair were allegedly producing up to 500 South African ID documents and issuing them for between R3 000 and R23 000 each.
The amount was not out of the norm as people often paid immigration lawyers quite a lot of money for the documents, department spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said.
During the investigation it was discovered that the syndicate members were creating and issuing ID documents fraudulently.
“The identity business is quite a lucrative one and South Africans take it lightly how our IDs, passports and social services are quite sought after on the continent and abroad.
“We know that an additional 42 people were involved with these two men, and therefore we don’t want to give out too much information at this particular point,” said Tshwete.
The department was hoping the book would be thrown at the two men and was of the opinion that charges of corruption and fraud were too light as the accused had exposed the country to great risks.
Tshwete said the department was working on a number of investigations to combat corruption and was also looking into its other offices, including Marabastad, and staff at the ports of entry.
Hawks acting spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the elite unit had been looking into the matter for some time. Mulaudzi said they were pleased that their co-operation with the department was bearing fruit in order to root out corruption and arrest people who were putting South Africa at risk on a daily basis.
“Matsipa and Hussain will be facing charges of fraud and corruption. We take this type of corruption very seriously,” he said.
“Crimes like these are of concern, hence we will have a project to deal with these cases and many others that will hopefully lead to a lot more arrests,” said Mulaudzi.
Tshwete advised other officials working in the department who were involved in these type of crimes to cease immediately as they risked being exposed and nabbed.
“Modernisation and using technology systems which capture data online will enable us to detect these instances more rapidly going forward and help counter and bring down corruption to zero,” he said.
Tshwete noted that another issue of concern to the department was the percentage of people coming on to the national population register via the late registration of births.
“The incident of the ‘white widow’ (linked to terror in Kenya) is just another incident of people taking advantage of the system to access the country illegally claiming to have been delayed in registering. “This issue needs to be dealt with as it is quite serious and places the country in huge danger.”
Pretoria News