Members of law enforcement evict refugees camping outside the United Nation High Commission Refugee in Brooklyn, Pretoria, in April last year. Picture: Oupa Mokoena Independent Newspapers
The South Africa Refugee-led Network (SARLN) has called on the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to broaden its investigations into organisations claiming to provide services to refugees but instead exploiting their vulnerability.
The request comes against the backdrop of the SIU raiding all five refugee centres in the South Africa recently.
While the network commended the efforts of the SIU to finally address the long-standing allegations of corruption of organisations and departments purporting to be assisting refugees for the past decade, they said they believed more still needed to be done.
Martin Mande, the SARLN secretary-general, said the organisation and others dealing with immigrants applauded the recent raids as the “crippling corruption” of organisations involved the illicit sale of asylum and refugee documents by officials within the Department of Home Affairs, which contributed to the significant backlog of processing immigrants, even though billions of rand were allocated to eradicate these issues.
“We support the necessity of these raids and actions taken, but it is also crucial to recognise the adverse impact on individuals with legitimate asylum claims. Many such individuals continue to suffer from delays and inefficiencies that stem directly from this systematic corruption.
“There is a need to scrutinise the processes through which funding is awarded to these organisations year after year, despite their failure to deliver adequate services. It is time to put an end to the ineffective ‘casino’ system we have been witnessing for too long,” he said.
Mande said it was for this reason that they called for the inquiry to extend its investigations to organisations claiming to provide services to refugees, but which were instead exploiting their vulnerability.
“SARLN will continue to support government efforts aimed at ensuring a comprehensive approach to eliminating corruption and restoring genuine refugee protection. We remain steadfast in our commitment to advocate for efficient, transparent, and equitable procedures that support those genuinely in need of refuge. These efforts are an essential step towards restoring the integrity of the asylum and refugee process in South Africa.”
For a number of years refugees have decried the poor state of refugee centres across the country, so much so that some opted to camp outside of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Brooklyn, Pretoria, demanding to other third world countries.
The refugees from Congo and Burundi left the Lindela Repatriation Centre, where they had stayed for the past three years, after they staged a protest demanding to be taken out of South Africa in 2019.
Many spoke of the poor state of the facilities and how they were not able to access basic services like education for their children or job opportunities to make means to survive.
The refugees continued to camp outside the UNHCR offices in Pretoria even though the organisation stressed that their request could not be acceded to.
Lawyers for Human Rights also commended the raid by the SIU, adding that as far back as 2015 to 2020, a survey had pointed to nearly 30% of respondents reporting coming across corruption, or being asked ford for bribe money.
The Star
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