South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs last year made it mandatory for foreign nationals to obtain affidavits for their minors who would be travelling travel across the border without either of their biological parents, or parents with varying surnames from the one on the child’s documents.
The affidavits, signed by either of the parents, must bear a stamp from the nearest police station and be carried by the adult who travels with the minor. But following growing complaints by Zimbabweans that they were being turned away from most police stations, investigations by The Zimbabwean established that most police officers were working on strict orders not to issue the affidavits.
“We now don’t know what is happening because we get many Zimbabweans coming here to ask for such affidavits, yet we have been given strict orders not to issue them,” said a police officer at the Yeoville police station this week.
“It looks like this provision was only made to make life tougher for the Zimbabweans, or to discourage them from bringing their children to this country. In the past, we thought that maybe there was bad communication between the DHA and the Ministry of Police, but now we have been told we must not issue those affidavits.”
Officers at Hillbrow, Jeppe, Johannesburg Central and many others in the city centre confirmed this. The confusion has opened another avenue for police corruption, with some daring lawmen now charging exorbitant “fees” to process the affidavits.
“I was charged R500 to have the affidavit written for my child late last week by a policeman who said he was risking his job to help me,” said Michael Ndlovu.
“I had no choice because I wanted my child to come here to begin school, so I paid him, although everything, was done in secrecy. Something really needs to be done about this – if the affidavit has been removed, we need to know to save us the time.”
Some Zimbabweans claimed that they were forced to forego the affidavit, after they had been charged R1,000 at police stations to have it processed. They then had a hard time at the border, where they paid more for their children to exit South Africa.
A police officer confirmed that bribery was rife on the affidavits. “I have heard about the bribes being paid to have the forms processed, but I have not seen that. However, people must know that whenever you are required to pay for something that should be free, it means the transaction is illegal,” he said.
The DHA had not responded to emailed questions at the time of going to print.
Post published in: Africa News