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700 000 blocked owners have 30 days to explain why their IDs should not be cancelled. This could bring an entirely new set of challenges. From Moneyweb.

The clampdown on ID fraud could lead to ‘significant administrative headaches and uncertainty for many people’. Image: AdobeStock

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) under new minister Leon Schreiber appears determined to stamp out the decades-old problem of ID fraud.

Since 2005, the department has blocked roughly 700 000 IDs for a variety of reasons, such as IDs unlawfully obtained by illegal immigrants, the Home Affairs biometric database flagging the ID as a duplicate, or the owner having passed away.

Now the DHA has given those with blocked IDs 30 days to explain in writing why their IDs should not be cancelled.

What the high court had to say …

The issue of blocked IDs was the subject of a Pretoria High Court judgment earlier this year when Phindile Mazibuko approached the court to stop the DHA from revoking her status as a permanent resident or threatening to deport her.

Backed by Lawyers for Human Rights, with LegalWise South Africa as an intervening party, Mazibuko also asked the court to review the DHA’s decision to place a marker against her name and to confirm her status as a lawful South African.

The court ruled that placing markers against ID numbers was administratively unjust and must follow a fair process. It also ruled that any child born to parents whose residency status was under investigation should be issued with a birth certificate and ID number.

The court went further, ruling it is unlawful to place markers against suspicious ID numbers unless a fair administrative process has been followed. Mazibuko won the case, and the DHA was interdicted from revoking her permanent residence status or deportation without following the procedures laid out in the Immigration Act.

The DHA responded to this judgment by offering those with blocked IDs a 30-day window to explain why these should not be cancelled.

“I encourage members of the public to make use of this opportunity to ensure that we conduct a just and equitable process to unblock IDs that have been wrongfully blocked,” said Schreiber in a statement.

“At the same time, the gazetting of these decisive measures underscores our commitment to clamp down on fraud, and to move with urgency to resolve longstanding challenges while upholding the rule of law.”

‘Risk of mistakes’

In the Mazibuko case, the court ordered the DHA to review IDs blocked before November 2022 to make sure they were accurate.

“While this ruling aimed to fix the due process issues, the current notice asking people to make representations could bring new challenges,” says Stefanie de Saude-Darbandi, an immigration and citizenship law specialist at DSD Attorneys.

“For one, not everyone who’s affected may get the notice, so many people might not be aware of the issue. Even those who do get it may find it hard to make meaningful representations since they don’t know why their IDs were blocked.

“Also, it’s questionable whether the DHA can handle potentially hundreds of thousands of cases in the year they have,” she says.

“If they rush the process, there’s a risk of mistakes, which could make things worse.”

There’s also uncertainty about how interim issues will be managed. People might face disruptions while waiting for resolutions, and if the DHA’s decisions are wrong or handled poorly, the only option might be going back to court, adds De Saude-Darbandi.

Listen/readHome Affairs working at speed to reduce queues and visa backlog

“Overall, while the invitation for representations is meant to address past issues, it could create new problems and lead to significant administrative headaches and uncertainty for many people.”

Population register clean-up

The DHA says the latest measure to clean up the population register is a response to the Mazibuko judgment, which required the department to undertake a fair administrative process to differentiate between IDs that have been wrongfully blocked and those that represent genuine security threats.

The department says it is embarking on an extensive social media campaign to provide the public with an opportunity to make representations.

This is one of the steps taken by Schreiber to improve performance at what has been considered one of the most inefficient portfolios within government.

Home Affairs has reportedly cleared 50% of its roughly 300 000-strong visa backlog in just three months, in part due to allowing overtime for departmental staff. He expects the backlog to be fully cleared by Christmas.

The sluggish handling of visa applications is reckoned to have cost the economy billions of rands in investment and tourism revenue. Schreiber recently told business leaders that clearing the visa backlog will be vital in stimulating economic activity.