1. The department has always had good co-operation from the government of the Kingdom of Lesotho when it comes to repatriating their nationals who are found to be illegal in South Africa. The position of the department is to continue this co-operation which includes the Lesotho government confirming their nationals prior to deportation.
(2)(a) The Inspectorate as at 1 September 2022 has 700 members.
(2)(b) Funding was provided for the filling of 293 posts in quarter 1 of this financial year. The process to fill the posts has already commenced with 196 offers of employment being issued.
(3)(a) The number of deportation recorded for the last 3 financial years is as following:
There was a notable decrease during the course of the state of disaster arising from the Covid Pandemic.
(3)(b) The budget allocation for deportations this financial year was R20,901,000.00
(4)(a) The department is aware of the figures given by the Statistician General Risenga Maluleke a figure of 3.95 million foreign nationals are in South Africa according to their mid-year population estimates in 2021. This figure includes foreign nationals regardless of status. The department therefore refutes the figure of 12 million as we are not aware of the verifiable source that figure comes from. In order to deal with the challenges arising from persons who are undocumented the department is vigorously conducting operations and inspections to deal with this.
(4)(b) The department has been active in engagements with communities like Krugersdorp and has ensured that local, provincial and national elected representatives, community groups and other stakeholders have direct access to the senior management of the department to respond to these challenges. The department has been part of the multi-disciplinary team that is responding to the challenges of illegal immigration. A team of 60 immigration officers has been part of this effort. Prior to this the department was part of the team that was involved in crime combatting efforts in Diepsloot from April 2022 to July 2022.
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