Border Control: Government again sticks a plaster over a festering wound
6 October 2023
On April 1, 2023, the Border Management Authority (BMA) 2023 officially commenced its operations as an independent public entity. It now serves as the third law enforcement agency in South Africa.
The establishment of the BMA carries profound implications, as it consolidates South Africa’s border management efforts into a unified command and control structure, apparently aimed at enhancing border security, ensuring safe travel, and facilitating trade. All of South Africa’s ports of entry, comprising eight seaports, 52 land-based ports, and 11 international airports, now fall under the purview of the BMA for management and oversight.
The BMA was officially launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 5 October 2023, with great fanfare of course, a trademark of a collapsing government, clutching at public relations straws to try and save face.
South Africa has been plagued by cross border crime for decades. The post 1994 era saw the ANC government depart on a public relations exercise that included softening control of the country’s borders. Electrified border fences were disabled, commando units disbanded and the general decline in law enforcement and incline in corruption was soon prevalent across the country.
Fast forward to 2023 and South Africa’s borders are basically non existent, except to those law abiding citizens who still choose to subject themselves to this mythological concept, by making use of border posts to cross into neighbouring countries.
The crimes fuelled on by these open borders include illegal immigration, human trafficking, and the smuggling of firearms, narcotics, explosives, wildlife products, counterfeit goods and, of course, billions of rands worth of illegal cigarettes. In 2018 it was estimated that cigarette smuggling cost the country R4 billion per year in lost tax revenue.
The criminal networks that have flared up to facilitate cross border crime have become extremely sophisticated and reach very far, and include kingpins on both sides of the border, politicians, taxi operators, law enforcement, customs officials and foot soldiers. As one illegal immigrant from Zimbabwe once told me, “if you have enough money in your pocket, you are guaranteed to get to Johannesburg. If you get caught, you just pay and you are guaranteed”.
But that is if you can pay.
Smuggling routes are strictly controlled by various gangs. Illegal immigrants who dare to cross into these areas without paying protection money stand to get raped and murdered. The underwear of female gang rape victims are often strung up in trees along the border as a warning to those who would dare cross the border without paying the required fee, as I have witnessed first hand.
On the other side of the Zimbabwean border, outside Musina, South Africa, local farmers are desperately trying to continue farming while competing with literally thousands of smugglers trespassing through their properties at night. Many farmers have given up parts of their farms because they cannot risk running into smuggling gangs any longer.
Three days before Ramaphosa’s recent visit to Musina, while the entire area was swarming with police and military personnel in preparation for the president’s arrival, a 56 year old farmer was attacked on one of the border roads in broad daylight. He was assaulted, pistol-whipped and handcuffed to one of the fenceless border fence pillars, as his attackers drove his vehicle straight into Zimbabwe.
But instead of going back to basics, like putting up decent border fences and enforcing effective border control, the ANC government chose to create a new flashy entity, cooked up from the ANC recipe book of pretending to address issues but not really doing anything.
A few days after the first border guards were deployed to the Musina area in July 2022, South African soldiers and BMA guards were getting into fist fights over who was allowed to now charge bribes from those crossing into the country illegally.
On top of that, these armed guards were deployed without the relevant legislation ever being published in the Government Gazette, thus they were deployed unlawfully, which begs the question whether any of the arrests they performed during this time will hold up in a court of law. It took reminding from the civil rights organisation AfriForum before the legislation was quietly published and officially made law.
The new Border Management Authority has simply absorbed previously corrupt police officers, customs officials and other law enforcement officials into its “new” structure. It is clear, that the ANC government has fallen back on its age old tactic of sticking a shiny plaster over a festering wound, while ignoring the gangrenous rot that will eventually swallow them whole.
Jacques Broodryk is the director of the documentary series Open Borders and spokesperson for Community Safety at AfriForum.
