Pretoria – Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has welcomed the 15-year direct imprisonment sentence given to a corrupt immigration practitioner and an Ethiopian national who attempted to secure a batch of 5 000 permits fraudulently.
The Pretoria Magistrate’s Court has sentenced Nasi Seqola, an immigration practitioner and her accomplice, Biru Yosef Alem, an Ethiopian national who is a holder of South African permanent residence permit, to 15 years behind bars without an option of a fine.
Seqola and Alem were found guilty in October, and the Pretoria court sentenced them on Monday.
The court heard that Seqola tried to recruit an official from the Government Printing Works to print blank 5 000 permits.
In return, the unidentified official was to be given a R150 000 bribe.
The Government Printing Works official reported Seqola’s advances to the counter corruption branch which worked with other law enforcement officials to set up a sting operation.
The Department of Home Affairs said the 5 000 blank permits were printed by Government Printing Works, and handed over to law enforcement officers working in the set-up.
The blank permits were used in the sting operation and the unwitting Seqola paid the R150 000, and she was arrested.
The blank permits were returned to the Government Printing Works.
“This avoided what could have been a catastrophe in terms of permitting. We congratulate the patriotic Government Printing Works official who resisted huge amounts of money and remained honest to his job and his country,” Motsoaledi said.
In the scheme, Home Affairs Department said the plan was to have Alem recruiting foreign nationals who do not qualify for South African permits, and for a fee, bring them to Seqola. The immigration agent would then complete the fraudulent permit and then use her corrupt contacts at home affairs to insert such a permit into the official data base.
“Some immigration practitioners have had a corrosive effect on home affairs service delivery. They corrupted a lot of home affairs officials and by extension tried to launch an attack on the sovereignty of our country,” Motsoaledi said.
The minister said some immigration practitioners are not hiding “their corrupt tendencies” as they are advertising shorter turnaround times than the home affairs stipulated periods to process documents.
“They did this presumably because they were confident of their abilities to leverage their corrupt networks to prioritise applications for them,” said Motsoaledi.
He said after Alem finishes serving his 15-year jail time, he will be deported to the country of origin.
The Department of Home Affairs highlighted that immigration practitioners are not its employees and they must not be confused with immigration officers.
“Immigration practitioners are private businesses that assist foreign nationals to apply for permits. In other words, they act as third parties in the application process,” the Department of Home Affairs said.
“Unfortunately, some of these immigration practitioners are not affiliated to any professional statutory body that regulates their conduct. Alarmingly, some do not have verifiable business premises.”
In a desperate bid to gain an advantage over their competitors, some of the immigration practitioners have allegedly resorted to bribing corrupt home affairs officials to get the applications of their clients expedited.
IOL