Home Affairs Director-General's speaking notes for weekly media briefing

Our weekly media briefing today will be focussing on two issues namely – the alleged South African passport held by the suspected head of Al-Qaeda who was killed in Mogadishu, Somalia last week and secondly we will focus on the department’s support to National Youth Day Commemorative Events.

Alleged South African passport held by dead head of Al-Qaeda in Somalia is fake

Over the past few days there has been extensive domestic and international media coverage following the death in Mogadishu of the alleged head of Al-Qaeda in East Africa, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, who was reported to have been carrying an alleged South African passport.

Following this coverage, the Department of Home Affairs expressed its serious concern about the reports. Consequently, Minister of Home Affairs, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma directed the department to immediately launch a thorough investigation.

Accordingly, the department launched an investigation into the matter, in collaboration with relevant law enforcement agencies including cooperation with our diplomatic mission in Kenya.

Following receipt of the copy of the passport allegedly used by Fazul, an extensive search was conducted on our National Population Register to check on the ID number that appeared on the passport as well as the Movement Control System to determine when the deceased would have entered and/or left South Africa as was suggested in media reports.

Our investigations have revealed without equivocation:

• The passport was not an authentic South African passport but a fake
• The passport was not issued by any lawful South African authority charged with the responsibility for the issuance of passports
• And no correlation existed between the ID number appearing on the fake passport and the fake passport number
• The South African Movement Control System has no record of any movement in or out of the country at any of our ports of entry by Fazul using the fake passport.

Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma welcomes the report of the investigation into the matter and expresses the hope that the outcome will lay the issue of the security of South African documents to rest.

The thorough investigation into the matter also communicates a positive message that the systems that the government has put in place, such as the Movement Control System launched in the period leading to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, are effective and efficient and will continue to assist the country in its efforts to push back the frontiers of fraud and corruption.

The Department of Home Affairs will continue to strengthen its collaboration with other law enforcement agencies to protect the integrity of our documents to ensure no one is able to use them for nefarious activities at home and abroad. In this regard, we extend our gratitude to our sister law enforcement agencies, without whose assistance, the investigation would have taken longer to conclude.

Home Affairs to support National Youth Day celebrations

Earlier this week Minister of Home Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma called upon the youth of our country who are 16 years and above to apply for IDs within the context of the forthcoming 35th anniversary of 16 June upheavals.

The call for youth of 16 years old and above to apply for IDs is an integral part of the National Population Registration Campaign launched by President Jacob Zuma and Minister Dlamini Zuma in Libode, Eastern Cape last year.

In this regard, the campaign seeks to ensure that all 16 year olds apply and secure IDs to enable them to access critical social services delivered by government.These include, among others, enabling matriculants to register to write their final examinations and lay the basis of their advancement towards tertiary education.

Accordingly the department is collaborating with the National Youth Development Agency to support Youth Day commemorative events taking place throughout the country by deploying our mobile offices to these events as follows: