South Africa Spends US$3 Million On Deporting Border Jumpers
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a South African opposition party, has raised concerns about the R52.8 million (US$2.9 million) spent on deporting illegal immigrants between April and August.
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, in a recent Q&A session in parliament, revealed that 19,750 undocumented immigrants were deported, costing the government R52,817,656 (US$2,995,289.27).
This number represents an increase from the 10,808 deportations in 2022/23.
Speaking to TimesLive, EFF MP Thapelo Mogale said the funds could have been better used to strengthen border management and prevent unauthorised entries of foreigners. Said Mogale:
The department is spending excessive amounts of money on the deporting of illegal immigrants in just a few months. If we were to look at it over a period of five years, I’m convinced we would’ve spent a billion or more.
That is money that could be used for other things. We have a border management agency which is grossly underfunded.
If the border management agency is underfunded, then you’ll experience an influx of undocumented people coming into the country.
Mogale suggested a more practical approach of documenting immigrants rather than spending heavily on deportations. He said:
These people are here already, and now we have to spend millions to get rid of them. The EFF’s solution is to document these people because they are already here.
In that way we’ll be able to identify those who are undesirable, those who may have criminal records, fugitives of justice, and those who ran away from their countries of origin because of criminal activities.
We’ll be able to keep those kinds of things through that process.
The leading countries of origin for deported immigrants in 2022/23 were Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
More: Pindula News
