Gigaba gears up to tackle corruption as he rejoins home affairs

Source: The Citizen, 02/03/2018

The minister says he wants to reposition the department and help it
to facilitate economic development inSA through its immigration
policy.
Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Friday said reviewing the
current systems for issuing South African documents to foreign
nationals was one of his top priorities when he rejoined the
department, bearing in mind the “prominent cases” where procedures
were said to have been flouted.
“We need to ask questions … a number of cases have come up relating
to how people access South African documentation. I think we need
review the robustness of our systems in that regard.
“Some of these cases are prominent cases where people have obtained
South African documentation, they are found at a later stage to be
involved in all sorts of corrupt and other nefarious activities,”
Gigaba said.
He was addressing senior home affairs management staff in Pretoria as
he begins another tenure in his old portfolio after a brief stint as
finance minister.
“The question arises … how robust are our systems to be able to deal
with that, to preempt it, to combat it, to minimise it? Obviously
there is no way that we, sitting here, can know that in the future a
person may be engaged in crime or corruption. Is there anything we
need to do in terms of the systems we are operating, to improve their
robustness, their vigilance, to assist us minimize future problems?”
In March last year, then president Jacob Zuma fired minister Pravin
Gordhan and finance deputy minister Mcebisi Jonas. Zuma moved Gigaba
from home affairs, to replace Gordhan.
This week, President Cyril Ramaphosa named his first Cabinet and
moved Gigaba back to lead the department of home affairs.
Parliament has previously raised questions on how members of the
politically connected Gupta family became naturalised South African
citizens.
On Friday, Gigaba said he wanted to reposition the department of home
affairs and help it to facilitate economic development in the
country through its immigration policy.
“One of the urgent things we need to finalise is the repositioning of
the department. Much as we have got Cabinet approval to locate it as
part of the security cluster, we had also decided that we would want
to reposition the department to play a role in facilitating economic
development in the country.
“That means supporting our ports of entry, supporting tourism,
ensuring that we can play a role in empowering citizens with the
documents that will enable them to play an economic role.”
The minister was flanked by his deputy Fatima Chohan, and home
affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni.