MBABANE – The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has found a Home Affairs official guilty of illegally issuing an Eswatini ID to alleged South African crime boss Vusi ‘Cat’ Matlala.
Matlala is a South African businessman and security-sector entrepreneur from Mamelodi, Pretoria, who has become a central figure in investigations into alleged corruption, organised crime and political interference in South Africa’s criminal-justice system.
This happens at a time when the Minister for Home Affairs Princess Lindiwe continues to crack the whip in her drive to root out corruption and maladministration within the ministry.
The minister has reportedly worked hard to identify government employees who issue identity documents illegally and fraudulently.
Her ministry reported them to the CSC which acted on their prima facie evidence, leading to their dismissals.
In the latest case, the CSC has found the suspended Home Affairs Assistant Regional Civil Registrar, Nonhlanhla Malambe, guilty of unlawfully processing an Eswatini birth certificate and national identity card in favour of Matlala.
The commission described Malambe’s conduct as a serious breach that compromised national security, border integrity and the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Eswatini. It further questioned how many other foreign nationals could be in possession of fraudulently issued Eswatini birth certificates and national identity cards, raising severe concerns over the overall integrity of the country’s civil registration system.
The finding follows disciplinary proceedings in which Malambe was charged with dishonesty in contravention of Section 49(g) of the Public Service Act, 2018.
The CSC found Malambe guilty after considering evidence that she had, on February 12, 2024, wrongfully registered and issued an Eswatini birth certificate to a foreign national under the name Vusimuzi Dlamini.
The birth certificate falsely identified Thembi Christinah Zulu, whose particulars were hijacked in the registration, as the mother of Dlamini. Eight days later, on February 20, 2024, Malambe issued an Eswatini national identity card to Dlamini without requiring or processing the necessary source documents.
The CSC stressed that the registration was not merely an administrative error, but a deliberate violation of established statutory procedures.
According to the ruling, Malambe admitted during the disciplinary proceedings that she had registered the birth certificate and issued the national identity card without following prescribed protocols.
She claimed to the commission that she had been misled by one Mxolisi Shongwe, whom she trusted and regarded as a cousin.
However, when pressed by the commission as to why she ignored mandatory procedures, Malambe failed to provide a plausible explanation.
The commission established that standard late registration procedures were entirely bypassed. Mandatory requirements included a formal letter from the relevant umphakatsi, while the person making the report was required to be the biological mother of the individual being registered or an informant at least 10 years older. The commission heard that none of these basic prerequisites were met.
The matter was uncovered after INTERPOL approached the Ministry of Home Affairs to verify an Eswatini identity number linked to Vusimuzi Dlamini following his arrest in South Africa. A witness who testified during Malambe’s hearing stated that upon entering the identity number into the civil registration system, investigators discovered it was a recently processed identity document.
The system reflected that the transaction was executed using user account X1003, which was uniquely assigned to Malambe. The system also recorded Zulu as Dlamini’s mother.
The witness subsequently investigated the alleged parentage and discovered that Dlamini did not appear among the children recorded under Zulu’s particulars. The witness contacted one of Zulu’s daughters, Phindile, and enquired whether she had a sibling named Vusimuzi Dlamini.
To verify the facts, the witness travelled to Motshane to meet the woman whose particulars had been used in the registration.
The woman informed him that she had eight children, all of whom carried the Shongwe surname, and confirmed that she did not have a child named Vusimuzi Dlamini. She further informed the CSC that she had never registered an identity card for anyone in 2024.
The woman recalled having previously lost her identity card while attending a clinic for a medical check-up, though it was later recovered. She expressed shock and deep distress upon learning that the Home Affairs database reflected her as the mother of Vusimuzi Dlamini, fearing that members of her community would misinterpret the situation and view her as a promiscuous woman.
This evidence proved critical, especially since The Times of Eswatini had first exposed the existence of the fraudulent identity document in July 2025.
The CSC held that Malambe’s conduct brought the Kingdom of Eswatini and the Ministry of Home Affairs into disrepute, concluding that she fully understood her actions were unlawful.
The commission noted that the birth certificate had been deliberately processed as though it were a replacement for an old version, creating the false impression that the birth had previously been registered.
According to the commission, this tactic was designed to defeat an audit trail, characterising the entire enterprise as a well-orchestrated plan rather than an administrative blunder.
Furthermore, the CSC stated that issuing national documentation to a foreign national with no legal entitlement to Eswatini citizenship compromised border integrity and national sovereignty.
Using an innocent citizen’s particulars constituted fraud and triggered diplomatic embarrassment.
The commission highlighted that the anomaly only surfaced because Matlala was arrested in South Africa and INTERPOL intervened, raising doubts about whether the ministry would have ever detected the irregularity through routine internal audits.
The commission said the civil registration system is the foundation of national identity and security and that any compromise of that system was intolerable.
It further observed that, in the past months, it had dealt with a litany of cases bordering on the fraudulent issuance of national documents.
The CSC said this indicated that something is not correct with the system and procedures governing the issuance of national documents.
It specifically requested the minister for Home Affairs and the principal secretary to take note of its observations. Meanwhile, Malambe is undergoing trial at Mbabane Magistrates Court, where she faces 17 criminal counts. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is represented by Sivesonkhe Ngwenya of Sivesonkhe Ngwenya and Associates.
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