The Auditor General of South Africa conducted a performance audit engagement of the immigration process for illegal immigrants at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) in 2018. The following information has been extracted from this report:

1. Overview

South Africa has a land border of some 4 471 km, which it shares with neighboring countries

Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland. South Africa also has approximately 1,2 million km of air space and a coastline calculated at 3 924km. This vast area makes the challenges facing the South African border environment diverse. The Immigration Act regulates foreigners' admission to, residence in, and departure from South Africa. Foreigners in South Africa that transgress this act are dealt with according to the act's provisions. The DHA captures travelers' movements across South Africa's ports of entry.

Where illegal immigrants are identified, they are arrested and detained pending an investigation. In terms of section 34(1) of the Immigration Act, 447 stations of the South African Police Service have been identified as places of detention. From the detention centers across all provinces, illegal immigrants are transported to a holding facility. Transportation from the detention centers to the holding facility is either by the Home Affairs

provincial offices or by a service provider, and usually by road. The second leg of transportation, from the holding facility to the country of origin, is via either road or air. Transportation via road is usually done by a service provider. However, where none is available, the DHA uses its own vehicles for transportation. To South Africa's neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho, transport is via road.

Deportees have the option to pay for their own bus ticket (voluntary or self-paid deportation) or remain in the holding facility until the DHA can arrange a compulsory deportation. The DHA does not use rail or sea transport for deportation.

The DHA's mandate requires the DHA to manage immigration securely and efficiently in the interest of economic development and national security. One of the key objectives of DHA is to provide a secure and responsive movement control information system (MCIS). Immigration in South Africa, as in the rest of the world, remains a key issue. Illegal immigrants entering and residing in the country have a direct impact on the country's resources, the health and education sectors, and employment.

The performance audit engagement included, amongst others, the following areas:

Border management

Transportation of detainees and deportees

Funding by government

2. Audit engagement findings

2.1 Border management

2.1.1

There is currently no single national policy on integrated border management in South Africa. The current approach to border management requires a level of coordination between 27 different organs of state. These organs of state perform the functions of their individual mandates as set out in a range of different legislation. This fragmented border management environment promotes possible fraud and corruption and generates a high volume of persons and goods that continue to enter the country illegally.

2.1.2

The DHA did not have an accounting system for fines issued to conveyors (transporters bringing individuals into South Africa without valid travel documents) and maintained a register of fines issued on MS Excel. In the absence of an accounting system to manage the fines, the DHA was unable to send monthly statements to the conveyors and did not perform reconciliations over the years. Coordination between directorates within the DHA did not effectively address the issue of levying and collecting fines from conveyors, as they needed to reach a mutually accepted agreement on how to deal with this matter. Only approximately 20% of the fines issued from 2015 to 2018 were paid

.

2.1.3

The DHA experienced a shortage of staff at ports of entry and at the head office. It also faced challenges of outdated equipment and poorly maintained infrastructure. Old equipment and incompatibility issues resulted in additional pressure on resources, long delays and human error in rendering services.

2.1.4

The MCIS was not regularly updated with information on the movement of people across borders. This was due to poor communication in remote areas and inadequate equipment. To create the history of a person, information had to be consolidated from at least six information systems. Furthermore, the outdated file server that uploaded the movements onto the mainframe, crashed and could not be recovered. The consultants that developed and maintained the application had left the department and the department did not have the necessary in-house skills.

2.2 Transportation of detainees and deportees

2.2.1

The DHA did not have an approved policy, directives, procedures or guidelines to manage the transportation of illegal immigrants from detention centres to the holding facility, and again from the holding facility to country of origin.

2.2.2 The contractual agreements that the DHA had prior to March 2018 require that deportees be transported within 48 hours from the holding facility to the country of origin. However, the DHA failed to conclude supply chain management processes in time to re-enter into contracts and subsequently they used the three-quotation system to arrange transport. The waiting period to transport deportees increased since the three-quotation system was implemented, varying from three to nine weeks.

2.2.3

The provincial Home Affairs offices did not ensure the completeness of documents and files prior to transporting illegal immigrants to the holding facility. Consequently, 1 177 Illegal immigrants were refused entry at the holding facility (this was not attributed to the MCIS).

2.2.4

The DHA did not always know when illegal immigrants were released by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). It therefore could not adequately plan and coordinate their transport to the holding facility, and the subsequent deportation to the country of origin. This was because there was no service level agreement (SLA) or MoU between the DHA and the DCS. The provincial Home Affairs offices had to liaise with the South African Police Service and DCS to identify the number of detainees to be transported and when the transport was needed. As the actual number of illegal immigrants being transported was less than originally planned, the actual transport cost per person increased by 41% and 95% in two different instances.

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO:

(a) State the engagement objectives which would have been formulated during step 5 of the planning stage of the above performance audit engagement. [10 marks]

(b) Comment on abovementioned case using "the performance audit wheel". [30 marks]