Ladies and gentlemen of the media, let me express our appreciation that you have once again taken the time to join us for our weekly media briefing.
Today, we would like to brief you on our operations at Refugee Reception Offices with particular reference to the Marabastad Office and its satellite office at the Pretoria Showground’s as well as a review of our Easter operations.
Operations at refugee reception offices
South Africa, as a signatory to international conventions and protocols on the protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, is very cognisant of our international and moral obligations towards meeting these obligations.
We are also one of the largest receiving states for refugees and asylum seekers. At this stage, we receive an average of between 3 500 and 4 000 new applications for asylum per month.
The application process?
When a foreign national declares upon arrival at a port of entry, of his or her intention to apply for asylum in the Republic of South Africa, he or she is immediately issued with a section 23 permit which is transit permit allowing the holder to sorjourn through the country to the closest Refugee Reception Office.
A section 23 permit obliges the holder to present him or herself at a Refugee Reception Office within 14 days to apply for asylum in South Africa. Upon receipt of an application for asylum by the Department of Home Affairs, the foreign national is issued with a section 22 permit which is valid for three months from the date of issue. A section 22 permit allows the holder to legally remain in the country while his or her application for asylum is being adjudicated.
An application for asylum can have one of three possible outcomes: acceptance, rejection as manifestly unfounded or rejection as unfounded. South Africa adheres to internationally accepted reasons for granting asylum status:
1. When a person has a well-founded fear of being persecuted by reason of his or her race, gender, tribe, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, is outside the country of his or her nationality and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country, or, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his or her former habitual residence is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it; or
2. When there is external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or other events seriously disturbing public order in either a part or the whole of his or her country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his or her place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his or her country of origin or nationality; or
3. When a spouse or dependant of a person contemplated in point 1 and 2.
If the reasons for application are outside the afore-mentioned parameters, an application is considered manifestly unfounded.
Should applicants use the afore-mentioned reasons but if during the interview, their case is found to be without merit and evidence of persecution is absent and their account therefore not entirely truthful, such applications are declared unfounded and applicants have the right to appeal.
However, while the adjudication process is pending, every new applicant for asylum who presents him or herself at any of our Refugee Reception Offices in the country – Cape Town, Durban, Musina and Marabastad – are issued with a section 22 permit.
The adjudication process?
If an application is found to be with merit and adheres to international and South Africa’s accepted reasons for granting asylum, an applicant issued with a section 24 permit which is valid for four years. A section 24 permit bestows upon the holder all the rights and privileges enjoyed by South African citizens except the right to vote. This also means a refugee within the Republic can be legally employed.
If an application is found to be unfounded, the applicant is informed of her or her right to appeal this decision in writing. The applicant acknowledges this decision as well as his or her options going forward.
The Refugees Appeal Board is responsible for reviewing such decisions and the asylum seeker is given the opportunity to present him or herself to the Board to explain the reasons for which asylum is sought. The Appeals Board decides on the basis of the information before it, whether to uphold the decision not to grant asylum to the applicant or to set the decision aside. If the decision is set aside, asylum is granted to the applicant who is then issued with a section 24 permit with all its rights and privileges.
If an application is found to be manifestly unfounded, the decision is automatically reviewed by the Standing Committee on Refugee Affairs (SCRA). Again, based on a review of the case, the Standing Committee can uphold or set aside the initial decision. If the decision is set aside, asylum is granted to the applicant who is then issued with a section 24 permit with all its rights and privileges.
If the initial decision to reject an application is upheld by the Refugee Appeals Board or the Standing Committee on Refugee Affairs, a final rejection letter is issued to the applicant and the matter referred to our Inspectorate to enforce the provisions of our Immigration Act.
Challenges
As we have said, South Africa is the recipient of some of the highest volumes of asylum seekers in the world.
In this regard, we have an obligation to ensure that all asylum seekers are issued with valid documents enabling them to remain in the country legally as well as to review decisions that have been found to be unfounded or manifestly unfounded.
Following an audit of our operations, we have found a backlog in the review of decisions by the Refugees Appeal Board and the Standing Committee on Review Affairs.
At this stage, we can confirm we have identified backlogs in reviewing unfounded applications by the Refugees Appeal Board in Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Marabastad, Pretoria Showgrounds, and Musina. This currently amounts to eight seven thousand six hundred and two (87 602).
We have also identified backlogs in the review of manifestly unfounded applications by the Standing Committee on Refugee Affairs in Durban, Port Elizabeth, Marabastad, Pretoria Showgrounds and Musina. This currently amounts to sixty eight thousand, seven hundred and forty (68 740).
Going forward
Having acknowledged the immense challenge we face in finalising applications for asylum, we have taken a number of steps which will be effective from Monday 16 April 2012:
- Our offices will operate for extended hours from Monday to Friday. We will therefore be operations from 07h30 to 17h00.
- Our Refugee Reception Offices will also be open on Saturdays from 08h00-13h00 until we have resolved the backlogs.
- We will be rendering services to asylum seekers as per the following schedule:
- SADC nationals: Monday – Tuesday
- East Africa: Wednesday and Saturday
- West Africa: Thursday
- Asia and other countries: Friday
- We have also, since Wednesday this week, been working with members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) to assist with queue management. This arrangement will continue.
- We will also be deploying immigration officers to assist SAPS officials and our current security teams at the Refugee Reception Offices with queue management.
- We have finalised the appointment of a document management company that will assist our Refugee Reception Offices to manage our filing systems.
We take this opportunity to appeal to members of the media to assist us to communicate these measures so that indeed we are able to render quality and efficient services as well as to honour our international and moral obligations.
Review of our Easter holiday operations
Members of the media would know that, in anticipation of high traveller volumes, we had implemented a number of initiatives to ensure that travellers through our ports of entry over the Easter holiday would receive efficient and effective services. These included the extension of operating hours at certain ports of entry in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Free State and Eastern Cape as well as the deployment of an additional 200 immigration officers to these ports of entry.
We are pleased to announce that these measures have enabled travellers over the Easter weekend to indeed receive quality services without any undue interruptions or delays through our ports of entry.
In this regard, from Thursday to Monday, 5 to 9 April 2012, we recorded on our Movement Control System (MCS) a total of six hundred and thirty four thousand, nine hundred and fourteen (634 914) travellers who entered and departed from South Africa through various ports of entry throughout the country. This included three hundred and fifty three thousand, two hundred and forty three (353 243) arrivals and two hundred and eighty one, six hundred and seventy one (281 671) departures.
Of this, three hundred and fifty five, six hundred and seventy (355 670) travellers where from the continent and seventy five thousand four hundred and nineteen (75 419) travellers from other countries.
We further processed the movements of two hundred and twenty one, four hundred and sixty five (221 465) South African citizens, of which one hundred and twenty thousand, eight hundred and fifty seven (120 857) were arrivals and one hundred thousand, six hundred and eight (100 608) were departures.
African countries from which we received the largest number of visitors were: Lesotho (117 274), Zimbabwe (69 571), Swaziland (58 021), Mozambique (45 429) and Botswana (39 759).
I thank you.
Questions and Answers
Question Director-General, have you set a deadline by which to clear the backlog?
Answer (Director-General Mkuseli Apleni): In terms of the deadline for us to clear this backlog – as we have said, we have appointed DocuFile to assist with the filing of our documents. This will assist us to have a clear understanding of the numbers that we are dealing with. Looking at the current volume, we think it should take between 3-4 months to clear the backlog.
However, what is important is that the people who are in the country are legal since they all have section 22 permits which allows them to be in the country. What we are talking about is the process of finalising the appeals. This is why we are also splitting foreign nationals as we have indicated.
Our intention is to ensure that we finalise all permit applications including those where we need to finalise extensions by May. And then we will finalise the issue of times.
Question Director-General, you only mention asylum seekers – does this refer to foreign nationals as well?
Answer (Director-General Mkuseli Apleni): You will remember that at TIRRO (Pretoria Showgrounds) as an example, we only receive the people who are coming for permit renewals and they will come according to the schedule we have indicated.
At Marabastad however we receive foreign nationals who are in the country for the first time applying for refugee permits as well as those who are wanting extensions. These times have been synchronised. Whether you want a new permit or an extension, we are asking foreign nationals to come as indicated.
This will assist us to manage the volumes we are currently dealing with. Especially since we are now dealing with a situation where people stand in a queue for three days and only then do they receive service. This is why we have split the week into country specific days. This will assist us to use our resources more effectively.
Question Director-General, have the foreign nationals been informed of this?
Answer (Director-General Mkuseli Apleni): Yes, we began informing them yesterday. I was at TIRRO. But I was only able to talk to the people who were there. I was at Marabastad this morning. This is why we are appealing to the media to assist us to publicise this information. We will also put up posters at Marabastad.
Question Director-General, what will happen if someone comes on a day that is not allocated to that country – will they not be helped?
Answer (Director-General Mkuseli Apleni): Yes, that is correct because if we continue to help those who are not allocated to that day we will not be able to resolve the current chaos that we are experiencing. If you look at the number of days most of our asylum seekers are from SADC – this is why we have allocated two days to them. And the group that we experience high volumes from are those from East Africa – this is why we have allocated Wednesday and Saturday to them. We don’t want people to wait for service beyond a week. This is why foreign nationals from all countries will be served during the week.
