Times Of Swaziland: ACC GETS ARREST WARRANTS FOR 8 HOME AFFAIRS EMPLOYEES

ACC GETS ARREST WARRANTS FOR 8 HOME AFFAIRS EMPLOYEES
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Kwanele Dlamini on 29/08/2024 09:14:00


MANZINI – The Chief Justice (CJ), Bheki Maphalala, has issued warrants against
eight employees of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The arrest warrants, as well as those of search and seizure against the
employees, were issued by the CJ yesterday, after the Anti-Corruption Commission
(ACC) moved an urgent application.The warrants were issued in terms of the
Prevention of Corruption Act, 2008. In the warrants, the ACC officers were
authorised to search the homesteads of the implicated employees and further
confiscate any material they believe to have been used in the commission of
fraudulent activities.The other warrant was authorising the ACC officers to
arrest them (employees).Five of the implicated employees are female and they
hold senior positions. The eight employees are suspected to have been part of a
syndicate dealing in the sale of refugee status and passports to foreign
nationals.
Implicated
According to sources, by yesterday afternoon, a contingent of officers from the
ACC, were rounding up some of the implicated employees with the intention to
detain them.
The names of the implicated officers will not be mentioned, pending their court
appearance.The application for the warrants followed parallel investigations on
the same issue that were being conducted by the ACC and the Royal Eswatini
Police Service (REPS).  The investigations into this matter started in 2022,
when the Ministry of Home Affairs had instituted an internal probe into the sale
of refugee status and passports to foreign nationals.The investigations by the
ACC and the police reportedly found that there was a syndicate dealing in
documentation status and refugee passports.
It was revealed that the syndicate charged between E30 000 and E50 000 for fresh
and legal documents for any undocumented citizen, who wanted to be treated as an
official refugee in the Kingdom of Eswatini. The internal investigations saw
over 100 immigration officers being transferred last year. Also, the theft of
security documents, such as passports and travel documents, as revealed in the
Ministry of Economic Planning and Development 2023/2024 Annual Performance
Report, was so rife that government intended to instal a E3.9 million security
surveillance system in the Immigration Office in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
At the time, the immigration office was faced with the challenge of the
disappearance and theft of security documents, such as passports and travel
documents.
Surveillance
The report stated that government would spend at least E3.99 million on the
procurement and installation of a security surveillance system (digital
surveillance cameras, control equipment and other accessories) in selected
immigration offices in the ministry, which stored security documents.In the
event the warrants are executed, this will bring the number of those arrested in
connection with the fraudulent activities in the Ministry of Homes Affairs to
11. The ACC recently reported that it was investigating 250 cases, with the Home
Affairs case being one of them.First to be arrested in the fraudulent activities
in the Ministry of Home Affairs, was a Zimbabwean national, Delight Moyo, who is
facing charges of bribery, corruption and fraud.
It is suspected that Moyo was the middleman between some of the immigration
officers and ‘customers’ who needed passports.
When Moyo was arrested, it is alleged that he was found in possession of five
Eswatini passports, suspected to have been stolen from the Ministry of Home
Affairs.Assistant Immigration Officer Mboneni Nkosinathi Zwane was the second to
be arrested and was  slapped with 26 charges, including fraud, theft and money
laundering. He is currently out on E100 000 bail, which he was ordered to pay in
cash.Benjamin Mensah Larbi, from Ghana, was the last to be arrested and is
facing three charges. During his court appearance, Larbi undertook to assist the
investigators with information to uncover the rot in the ministry.Meanwhile, the
investigations uncovered that most government services were offered in the
backyard of some civil servants’ places of abode.
The investigators followed tips on allegations that there was a syndicate
milking the State of thousands of Emalangeni, as they rendered services of the
ministry from their backyards.
The investigators reportedly found that some civil servants were selling
government documents, such as birth certificates, national identity documents
(IDs), marriage certificates, travel documents, international passports, visas
and work permits. According to the sources, the modus operandi of the decadent
civil servants was that they dealt with agents who informed them of people in
need of these documents. Thereon, it was said the civil servants would in turn
bring the documents to their residences, where they were picked up by the
‘clients’.
It was said that some of the civil servants were also found with blank
documents, which were said to be filled per ‘order’.The clients were alleged
to have been paying the civil servants in cash as this was discovered during a
raid of residences of some of the civil servants fingered in the fraudulent act
of releasing government documents in the black market.
Syndicate
It was gathered that some civil servants were found with hard cash in their
houses, while others hid it in their vehicles.  It was also recently reported
that there was a South African syndicate that was allegedly manufacturing
government documents like passports and others.It was found that the syndicate
sold the documents to foreign nationals, who in turn became recognised as
Eswatini nationals by birth.During the investigation, it was discovered that
some of the recipients of the fraudulently issued documents were fugitives in
their respective home countries. These people used the fraudulently obtained
documents to seek asylum, when they were, in fact, fugitives of justice.The
investigations showed that in one instance, a sum of E195 000 was paid into the
bank account of one of the implicated government officials based in the Ministry
of Home Affairs, presumably by the members of the syndicate from neighbouring
South Africa.
According to the investigation, one of the officials from the Ministry of Home
Affairs was found with material used in the manufacturing of passports and it
was highly suspected that it was due to be delivered to the syndicate in the
Republic of South Africa. The investigation further revealed that between the
months of October 2023 and January 2024, through his First National Bank
account, one of the employees from the Ministry of Home Affairs allegedly
received money totalling E195 000 from people who made transfers in the Republic
of South Africa. The presence of the South African syndicate came to light
during the investigation against one of the Home Affairs employees, Zwane, who
is facing 26 charges.
In their report, the investigators stated that during the month of February
2024, they received information about a suspected syndicate that was issuing
Eswatini passports to foreign nationals, who were in turn given the status of
Eswatini by birth. The police highlighted that they were informed that some of
the officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs were involved in these unlawful
activities.