In an effort to address the influx of illegal immigrants in the country, Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has called on traditional leaders in different villages to work with the department to deal with the issue.
Motsoaledi says each chief must know the movements of people coming in and out of the village.
Motsoaledi has also called for an audit of all tuck shops in the country.
“The agreement is that all the mayors must take an audit of all the spaza shops, all, anything that is a spaza shop. I heard some people maliciously say no, we want to audit only spaza shops of people from other countries. We said any spaza shop. You cannot have a spaza shop that is unregistered; they must produce documents and register. People who have no documents who are illegal we will have to deport them, there’s nothing we can do. Those who have documents we’ll register and register them for tax,” says Motsoaledi.
The President of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) says an initiative has been started for chiefs to know people who come in and out of their villages.
“We made a call to all my headmen and my traditional councillors. I want a report of all out foreign nationals who are residing at Mathibela area so that they may be registered, so that we know whether they have documentation or not. There are many crimes here you might not even know who is committing them. That is the drive we are pushing that each and every foreign national must be registered,” says Kgoshi Lameck Mokoena, President of Contralesa.
Home affairs services
The residents of Marite in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga have also been encouraged to use home affairs services provided to them in the form of mobile trucks by the department.
The residents of Marite came in their numbers to apply for identity documents and other home affairs services. They are happy with the service they received so far.
“I am here to apply for an ID. The service was wonderful, fast and efficient; I appreciate everything they have done for us.”
“Everything went well, I am happy with the service we got here today. They assisted us very well.”
The Home Affairs mobile trucks are expected to visit various communities in the area.
