7 HOME AFFAIRS OFFICERS FACE 89 COUNTS

MBABANE – The seven immigration officers, whose warrants of arrest were issued on Wednesday by the Chief Justice (CJ) Bheki Maphalala, have been charged with 89 counts.
They are Njabulo Thembeka Thwala of Mpolonjeni, Mbekwa Carlo Ncongwane of Sidwashini and Dumsile Lukhele of Sigombeni. Others are Phumzile Mdluli of Ngwazini, Jean Khangezile Sitsebe of Nkoyoyo, Faith Sifiso Matse of Ngwenya and Ncobile Helen Dlamini of Siphocosini.Their charges stem from their alleged contravention of the Prevention of Corruption Act No.3 of 2006. Some of them are senior officers and most of them are assistant immigration officers. They are employed by government under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The basis of their charges is that they allegedly, directly or indirectly, gave and/or offered to give several foreign nationals the advantage of registration and/or issuance of refugee identity numbers. This, they are alleged to have done, for the benefit of the foreign nationals to be recognised as refugees in Eswatini. The foreign nationals who allegedly benefitted from the purported acts of corruption by the accused persons are from African and overseas countries.

Violation

According to the charge sheet, the accused persons allegedly abused their position of authority, which amounted to a breach of trust, amounting to a violation of their legal duty and/or set of rules.The accused were rounded up yesterday by a joint operation by members of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) and the Anti-Corruption Task Team. The septet were arrested in different areas in the four regions of the country. The offences were allegedly committed between November 2017 and March 2023, in Mbabane. A bulk of the offences were committed in March 2023. As reflected in the charge sheet, on some days in March 2023, various offences were committed in one day.

Accused

The accused persons are accused of contravening Section 42(1)(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act read with Section 42(2)(b)(i). Alternatively read with Section 42(2)(b)(ii).
According to Section 42(1)(b), under the heading, ‘General offence of corruption’, (1) subject to the provisions of Subsection (2), a person who directly or indirectly - (b) gives or agrees or offers to give any other person any advantage, whether for the benefit of that other person or of another person, is guilty of the offence of corruption and liable on conviction, to the penalty prescribed under Section 35(1). Subsection 2 states that, for an offence to be committed under Subsection 1, the act complained of must cause that person or influence another person to act in a manner - that is illegal, dishonest, unauthorised, incomplete or biased, among others.

Section 42(2)(b)(i) states that the act in question must amount to the abuse of a position of authority. According to Section 42(2)(b)(ii), the act should amount to a breach of trust.
Section 35(1), under penalties, provides that  a person who is convicted of an offence referred to in sections 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 or 34, shall be liable to a fine not exceeding E100 000 or imprisonment not exceeding 10 years or to both.Now that the warrants have been executed, it brings the number of those arrested in connection with the fraudulent activities in the Ministry of Homes Affairs to 10. The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC)  recently reported that it was investigating 250 cases, with the Home Affairs case being one of them.
The arrest of the septet came after CJ Maphalala issued arrest and search and seizure warrants against them on Wednesday. The ACC had moved an urgent application.
The warrants were issued in terms of the Prevention of Corruption Act No.3 of 2006. The warrants authorised the ACC officers to conduct searches in the homesteads of the implicated employees and further confiscate any material believed to have been used in the commission of the offences.

Syndicate

The seven accused persons are believed to be part of a syndicate that deals in the sale of refugee status and passports to foreign nationals.By Wednesday afternoon, a contingent of officers from the ACC, was in the process of rounding up some of the implicated employees, with the intention to detain them. Prior to the issuance of the warrants, there were parallel investigations regarding the same issue, which were being conducted by the ACC and the REPS.  The investigations in this matter started in 2022, when the Ministry of Home Affairs instituted an internal probe into the sale of refugee status and passports to foreign nationals. The investigations by the ACC and the police reportedly uncovered 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. Over 100 immigration officers were transferred last year as a result of the investigation.

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