Home affairs facing more than R2bn in lawsuits

Source: The Citizen, 11/11/2019

In a breakdown of the liabilities, the department’s immigration
services accounted for R698.5 million, civic services claims amounted
to R479.7 million, tenders and contracts to R829 million, while other
sections faced R7.8 million.
Home affairs recently admitted in a court affidavit that it had no
legal capacity and resources to enforce its immigration laws, including
how to deal with the ongoing sit-in at the offices of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in Tshwane and
Cape Town.
According to the Democratic Alliance (DA) member of the parliamentary
home affairs portfolio committee, Adrian Roos, this was contained in
the department’s affidavit submitted to the High Court in Pretoria on
Thursday.
Regarding claims against the department, Mavuso told the portfolio
committee that cases filed against home affairs were as high as 3,706
in 2018 and 3,333 so far this year. The department’s legal costs had
reportedly increased considerably over the past few years, compared
with previous years.
The main reasons for the increase were opportunistic litigations and
delays in finalising applications for visas, permanent resident
permits, appeals for rejected visa applications and judicial reviews of
negative asylum decisions.
The department also faced litigation as a result of the detention of
illegal foreigners at the Lindela holding facility in Krugersdorp.
Mavuso defined a contingent liability as a potential liability
depending on the outcome of an uncertain future event, such as a civil
claim against the department.
In this context, the department has in this year alone had a contingent
liability totalling R2.015 billion.
Mavuso stressed costs in these matters were always awarded against the
department. In instances where costs were awarded in favour, recovery
was always a challenge, as the state attorney was not prioritising the
recovery. Applicants in most cases did not have funds (or attachable
property) to pay costs as they were indigent foreigners and, in most
instances, asylum seekers.
Roos lambasted home affairs for its incapacity to implement the
country’s immigration laws. He said this had resulted in the UNHCR and
relevant municipalities being expected to do the department’s job.
“The DHA cannot do this alone but have the responsibility to lead the
process. The DA, therefore, calls on the DHA to immediately strengthen
[its] capacity by implementing a far more efficient asylum-seeker
system that works to ensure that refugees are able to live in South
Africa legally and deal with corruption in the immigration system
decisively,” Roos said.
He added the department must also ensure that asylum seekers were
timeously documented and that refugees were differentiated from
economic migrants. By doing this, the DHA would help prevent African
foreign nationals from being targeted as a group by those who accuse
them of being illegal immigrants, Roos said.
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