A home affairs official stationed at the South African high commission in Abuja, Nigeria, has been flagged for serious security and immigration fraud violations involving her Nigerian boyfriend.
The official, Boitumelo Shounyane, is alleged to have facilitated a five-year business visa for her boyfriend, Musa Abdulmuminj Ahmed, on the basis of fraudulent documents.
According to a report by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), the State Security Agency’s (SSA’s) foreign mission investigations unit uncovered fraud and corruption at the immigration and civic affairs service section in Abuja. Yet the incident was not acted on until the SIU report.
Shounyane is facing a disciplinary hearing on Tuesday next week.
“Mr Musa was a frequent traveller to the republic on a visitor’s visa permit between the period 2009 to 2014,” the SIU said in its February report.
“On 15 August 2018 Mr Musa submitted an application for a multiple port of entry visa, and it was adjudicated by Ms Shounyane. She approved the application and issued Mr Musa with a five-year visitor’s visa valid from 30 August 2018 to 29 June 2023 on condition to be admitted for business purposes.”
Ahmed is alleged to have used fraudulent documents in his application, claiming that he was chair of Saravin Technologies and that it had been awarded a contract to do horizontal directional drilling in Abuja with two big South African companies, MVR Solutions and Raubex, a leading infrastructure development and construction materials supply group.
The SIU said in its preliminary report that Ahmed used a number of fraudulent letters in his application, which was approved by Shounyane.
These included “a letter from Saravin Technologies requesting that their chair, Mr Musa, be granted a multiple-entry visa of five years to the Republic of South Africa to meet with their technical partners, namely MVR Solutions and Raubex due to the recently awarded contract”.
Another letter, said to be from MVR Solutions, was addressed to Ahmed, stating that “MVR Solutions and Raubex Ltd were inviting him for a meeting with executive members to discuss the scope of the recently awarded Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano (AAKK) gas pipeline and Ogidigben gas industrial city projects in Nigeria”, said the SIU.
But through investigations and interviews with the director of MVR Solutions, Loren van Rensburg, the SIU discovered that no such contract existed and that Shounyane had failed to verify the information provided by her boyfriend.
It is alleged that because of the relationship, Ahmed had free access to the high commission, where he would “spend hours inside the immigration and civic affairs section”, posing a “serious security violation”.
A ministerial committee on the issuance of permits and visas, appointed by former home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi and led by Cassius Lubisi, a former director-general in the Presidency and secretary to the cabinet, said an SSA investigation had found rampant irregularities in the Abuja mission.
“There is prima facie evidence of visa fraud and irregularities taking place at the mission, such as abuse of power, conflict of interest and improper conduct perpetrated by consular officials and locally recruited personnel,” Lubisi said in the June 2022 report.
According to the report, the auditor-general visited Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Abuja as part of a 2018-2019 audit. “During this visit the AG identified the risk of possible fraudulent issuance of visas. The then acting director-general then directed Internal Audit to conduct a review on the risk of the possible fraudulent issuance of visas. Based on the background given by the AG, there are matters relating to fraudulent visas that are prevalent,” said Lubisi.
Contacted for comment on the Shounyane case, the department of home affairs said it could not comment because of the “sensitivity of the matter”.
While immigration directives allow for long-term multiple port of entry visas for frequent business travellers, the SIU concluded that Shounyane “failed to verify the business contract Ahmed purported to have been awarded”, resulting in an irregular visa issuance.
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