The Sunday News
ABOUT 80 immigration officers have been dismissed from work this year, including the entire border staff at some posts, while some principal officers were demoted and others suspended for engaging in corrupt activities.
This was revealed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mr Melusi Matshiya, in an interview with Sunday News last week.
Mr Matshiya said corruption remained one of the country’s biggest challenges and Government had since intensified efforts to weed out the cancer in all Government departments.
He added that the Ministry of Home Affairs was scaling up investigations of alleged corruption within the Immigration Department and was moving towards tightening screws at the country’s ports of entry.
“We have some situations where we had to suspend the entire station at the border for instance in Kariba. They were suspended, went for disciplinary hearing and they were dismissed. We have since fired about 80 members of the Immigration Department over allegations of corruption.
“In terms of the principles of natural justice, one is supposed to respond to allegations that are being levelled against them. We have demoted some principal immigration officers to mere immigration officers,” he said.
Mr Matshiya said as part of efforts to curb corruption at the Immigration Department the Government would soon introduce e-gates at border posts and ports of entry to allow for the electronic monitoring of activities at the ports of entry.
He said the new technology would also help to curb smuggling of illicit drugs and goods in and out of the country.
With the new system, he said, individuals or travellers will be identified using electronic devices on their identity cards or passports, which will reduce cases of identity theft or people using other people’s identity documents.
Mr Matshiya, however, said there had to be a swift linkage between the Registrar-General’s office and the Immigration Department for the new system to work efficiently.
“We look at the Registrar-General’s office and the type of documents they produce for instance the passports that have unique features that are not visible to a naked eye. We want to develop them to become more sophisticated. When you look at the Immigration Department it has been computerised. We want everything now to be done electronically including receipting and having an appropriate data base.
“There has to be a linkage between the Registrar-General’s office and the Immigration Department so that we introduce e-gates where you use your identity card or passport and it will be read electronically. What then it means is people would only need to pass through the e-gate and their identities would be reflected. This will help us nip corruption,” he said.
Sometime in 2009 the Immigration Department fired the entire staff at Kariba Border Post after they were accused of pocketing $290 they collected from day travellers who crossed into Zambia.
Emma Ngoma (46), Shuvai Nhovoro (28), Luckson Homela (30), Rumbidzai Masanganise (24), Tichaona Mifirakureva (30), Peter Mutodi (40) and Max Mashonganishe (37) appeared before Kariba magistrate facing charges of criminal abuse of office.
