The failure by the Department of Home Affairs to meet the deadline set by the British government for South Africa to improve its immigration security measures in order to continue allowing South African passport holders to travel without visas to the United Kingdom is a final nail in the coffin of Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula's lacklustre legacy.

Throughout her tenure, she has been alerted to the exploitation of South African travelling documents by non-South African citizens, who often collude with Home Affairs officials to obtain them. The department was also given at least 10 months to improve our immigration security measures or face a visa regime. Yet there is still no visible evidence of the department's efforts to make South African documents more secure than they are now.

The British government this week announced that from March this year South Africans who were previously allowed to travel to the United Kingdom with their South African passports will now need to be in possession of a visa to either visit or transit the UK, due to concerns over the abuse of South African passports. This abuse includes the proliferation of forged and stolen South African passports, which have been seized by UK officials in raids on suspected terrorist networks.

British authorities have identified our passport as one of the most exploited passports detected at UK borders. Many other countries are likely to be experiencing the same problem given the scale with which foreign nationals are able to acquire fake South African documents. There is every chance that other countries may be tempted to introduce similar rules against South Africa if the department does not take concrete steps to improve the security of South African documents, including rooting out corruption in the department.

It is clear that the Minister has never had a working plan to make Home Affairs a fully-functional government department. Her inept leadership has entrenched the inefficiency of the department at a great cost to the country and huge inconvenience to many South Africans.

Statement issued by Hilda Weber, MP, Democratic Alliance deputy spokesperson on home affairs, February 10 2009