Corruption crackdown at Home Affairs

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber says the Department of Home Affairs is starting to win the fight against corruption by holding officials accountable and dismantling long-standing syndicates.

Speaking at the University of Johannesburg’s Combatting Corruption Summit on Friday, Schreiber said the department had once been a “ground zero” site of state capture, plagued by corruption, poor service delivery, and long queues.

“From visas to the green bar-coded ID book, weaknesses in the system of document issuance were engineered and exploited, enabling syndicates to extract bribes to issue documents to people who were not entitled to them,” he said.

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Schreiber added that corruption was not confined to Home Affairs, but formed part of a wider network of collusion between government officials and private “tenderpreneurs.”

The minister noted that his early decision to revoke the citizenship of members of the Gupta family was part of a new direction under the Government of National Unity.

He stressed that accountability is the cornerstone of the department’s approach to restoring integrity.

This includes the Department of Home Affairs, the Border Management Authority (BMA), and the Government Printing Works (GPW).

“Through holding accountable people involved in corruption both inside and outside the department, we are dismantling the syndicates that took hold over many years,” Schreiber said.

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Between July 2024 and August 2025, 54 officials from Home Affairs and the BMA were dismissed for fraud, corruption, and misconduct. Eight of them have already been convicted and sentenced to prison terms of up to 18 years.

“This is a strong start, but we are far from done. We will not stop until we have purged every official who abuses their position for personal gain,” Schreiber said.