Moz migrants: own border gates
2009-11-17 20:14
Komatipoort - Mpumalanga's MEC for community safety, security and liaison has promised to do her bit to bring back soldiers to police the country's borders.
During a visit to three provincial border posts on Monday, Sibongile Manana said she would take up the matter with the national minister of police, Nathi Mthethwa, because crime along the borders with Mozambique and Swaziland was getting out of hand.
“I will ask minister Mthethwa to convince the cabinet to bring back soldiers to the borders,” said Manana.
Manana acknowledged that border security needed to be intensified, especially in light of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
She visited Jeppe's Reef and Mananga border posts along the Swaziland border and the Lebombo border post to Mozambique.
Manana was shocked by the illegal crossings through holes in the fence that took place while she was at the Mananga border gate.
Our border gates
“About 40 people crossed the border within five minutes while I was at the fence. When I asked them why they used illegal crossings instead of the border gates, they responded that these holes were their designated border gates,” she said.
Manana said although the police could not stop the movement of people between South Africa and its neighbouring countries, the illegal crossings made it difficult for them to do their work.
“These crossings also place a huge burden on the resources of our government because some of these foreign nationals are receiving social grants and other forms of assistance meant for South Africans.”
She said illegal immigrants were easy targets for criminals.
“Their movement remains undocumented, so when these people are victims of crimes they do not even report it to the police because they are here illegally,” said Manana.
“They are even used by criminals to commit crimes because we do not have their fingerprints,” she added.
Capacity
Members of the South African Police Service told the MEC that the police did not have the capacity to control illegal crossings. They said officers' working environment was not conducive to effective policing because of a lack of resources.
Officials at all three border gates told Manana that they needed equipment to scan large vehicles such as trucks because these were normally used to transport illegal goods to and from the country.
They also said the road along the fence was not suitable for their vehicles and there were not enough personnel trained in border policing.
"Untrained officers are drawn from police stations to assist at the border," a police member said.
At the Lebombo border post, which is 5km from Komatipoort, Manana was shown a number of impounded vehicles that had been destined for Mozambique after being stolen in South Africa.