'Drastic measures must be taken'

Responding to questions at the time, Home Affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said that while no senior officials had yet been implicated, all allegations would be investigated. He added that all official documents were supposed to be stored in lockable facilities and that each document was logged on arrival and when issued.

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“Stolen passports are flagged at ports of entry, and Interpol has also been informed,” Qoza said. “All passports are activated through the fingerprints of the owner, which makes them difficult to use if they were not issued through the correct process.”

Despite these controls, the document thefts have continued.

Willem Els, a security expert from the Institute for Security Studies, yesterday warned that the issue was bigger than missing documents — it could be a threat to national and international security. “It is really a pandemic within Home Affairs. The challenge is that these documents are authentic.”

He said “state-embedded actors” (insiders) were working with crime syndicates to undermine the system.

“Radical drastic measures must be taken in order to root that out or to curb that. Otherwise, we are venturing into a completely lawless state.”