Home Affairs Director-General Mkuseli Apleni's statement on the arrest of suspects in illegal possession of IDs
17 Aug 2010
On behalf of the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, we join the government and the people of our country, in congratulating members of the South African Police Service on the arrest of suspects found in illegal possession of 588 identity documents (IDs).
In this regard, we express our conviction that the police will leave no stone unturned to ensure a thorough investigation is conducted into how the suspects were enabled to be in possession of such a large number of IDs. For our part, as Home Affairs, we will indeed launch our own investigation into how these IDs fell into the hands of these suspects.
Accordingly, those members of our department found to have colluded with suspects in stealing these IDs from our systems will themselves have to face the full consequences of their own actions.
The theft of IDs is indeed a serious matter since most of such IDs land in the hands of criminals and other elements who then use them for nefarious activities at home and abroad, since possession of ID's gives access to other primary documents such as passports and illegal entry into our National Population Register.
In addition, such theft is contributory factor to the critical issue of duplicate ID's which have the impact of denying the rightful owners of these identity documents their basic rights to access critical services of the government such as health, education including social grants where applicable.
Unless we act decisively against such criminal acts, such acts will in the long term contribute towards the destabilisation of our country, pose a serious security threat to our democracy and continue to create a negative image of our country abroad regarding the security of our basic documents.
We are determined as government to ensure the people of our country are and feel safe. In this context, we will accordingly act against those whose actions threaten to reverse gains made by our people and country since the dawn of peace, freedom and justice. The arrests in Johannesburg on Monday 16 August must therefore send a clear message to those who still harbour hopes of profiting through the proceeds of crime such as the theft of ID's, that we will stop at nothing in our endeavour to rid our country, our government and indeed our department of the cancer of crime and corruption.
In pursuance of this objective we are strengthened in our resolve by the knowledge that our law enforcement agencies have both the will and capacity to deal with threats, from whatever quarter, to the stability of our country.
Most importantly, we know and know too well, that the majority of the workers of our department are honest and hard-working whose primary aim is to contribute to the overall national objectives of creating a better life for all and to transform Home Affairs into the employer of choice for all our people.
The arrests once more underline our conviction that working together with our law enforcement agencies, we can make serious inroads in our fight against crime and corruption.
Accordingly, we will continue to strengthen our liaison and partnership with the security cluster in pursuance of the mandate of Minister Dlamini Zuma in particular and the government in general to rid our department of the challenges posed by acts of corruption.
Statement issued by Department of Home Affairs, 17 Aug 2010
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