Border authority turns away 95,000 undesirables, recovers 139 stolen cars

The Border Management Authority (BMA) on Thursday said about 95,000 people had been denied entry into the country for a variety of reasons. 

Some of these were fugitives, said the authority's commissioner, Dr Mike Masiapato. He was briefing journalists on the key milestones and achievements of the entity from July after the deployment of the entity's border guards.

Masiapato said members had intercepted 139 stolen vehicles, which were handed over to detectives for investigation.

“Additional to that, we were able to intercept about 35,000 individuals who had tried to subvert our immigration laws and enter the country illegally.” They were arrested and deported.

Masiapato said the Border Management Authority came into effect on April 1 last year as an autonomous schedule 3(A) public entity with the mandate to facilitate the legal movement of people through South Africa’s ports of entry. 

He said the multiagency approach to dealing with issues around borders which had been in place since 1994 was not efficient, hence the BMA was formed. Masiapato said over the past two years, the BMA had been building capacity and incorporating other departments. It now has about 2,100 staff managing the country's ports of entry.

“In the financial year 2022/2023 the authority was incubated within the department of home affairs as a special branch, with a view of it being established,” Masiapato said.

He said the BMA had been fully established in the past financial year, including having President Cyril Ramaphosa move functions from other departments to the authority through section 97 of the constitution.

Further, he said there was administrative work with the National Treasury to move budgets from other departments into the BMA.

“All those administrative things were done and on April 1 the BMA kicked in officially as a schedule 3(A) public entity.”

He said the authority was working to deal with corruption at the borders and measures included commanders put in charge of each port.

He said once various technologies were fully deployed there would be very little human intervention, “and that on its own is going to help us deal with people who might want to subvert the system,” he said.

Ramaphosa is expected to launch the BMA officially next Thursday in Musina, Limpopo.

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