Tackling graft in home affairs 'is paying off'

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has commended the department's progress in rooting out corrupt officials.

- Vhahangwele Nemakonde

The minister launched the Border Management and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum yesterday to combat corruption.

Schreiber said corruption in the department was not a one-man show.

Sophisticated syndicates organised themselves within home affairs to extort and defraud both South Africans and immigrants.

"Where syndicates take control, they break the system. From the perspective of these criminals, an immigration system that creates loopholes to extort bribes is not broken. It is working exactly as they intend," said Schreiber.

"For this reason, our efforts to defeat corruption will never succeed if we only seek to treat the symptoms.