Question NW2297 to the Minister of Home Affairs

Reply:

Performance Area 1: Conduct general border management activities and security services to ensure effective and efficient border management

(i) Attend the on and off duty parades and be stationed as per deployment schedule of border guards.

(ii) Process proactive and responsive complaint attendances.

(iii) Report on arrested illegal foreigners held in the temporary holding cells.

(iv) Safeguard and control exhibits / evidence found to be handed over to other Agencies.

(v) Conduct arrest of illegal foreigners/ detainees to be transferred to the nearest ports of entry or police station for further handling.

(vi) Gather information for compiled reports as required by higher authority.

Performance Area 2: Implement controls on the movement of goods and people in the identified ports and segments

(i) Search people, luggage and vehicles as per the relevant regulations on the planned roadblock / check point operations in the port of entry and the vulnerable areas in the borderline.

(ii) Perform borderline duties, traffic check point operations and other law enforcement duties at outer/inner perimeter areas.

(iii) Report on all illegal movement of people and goods.

(iv) Maintain surveillance from covert positions at or near the international borders.

Performance Area 3: Control the access/egress at the identified port of entry and in border law enforcement area

(i) Conduct vehicle/foot patrols around the inner perimeter.

(ii) Control and regulate illegal movement of people and goods.

(iii) Identify and report on international visitors, travellers and shoppers for monitoring purposes.

(iv) Respond to electronic sensor alarms in remote areas as a Mobile Response Team.

(b) As clearly captured in the South African Constitution and the Defence Act, the responsibility of members of the Defence Force is to protect and safeguard the country’s territorial integrity through the patrolling of the 4773 kilometres of the land border areas, including the maritime coastline. They have currently deployed 13 companies to fulfil this responsibility through the application of high mobility patrol mechanism from on point to the other.

Therefore, as for the Border Guards, it should be noted that our sub-region has a number of inter-linked communities whereby the border fence had divided them into two halves. For instance, in the North-West Province, there are Batswana on the South African side and the Batswana on the Botswana side. In Mpumalanga, there are communities with Ba-Swati on the South African side and Ba-Swati on the eSwatini side. In the Free State, there are Basotho on the South African side and the Basotho on the Lesotho side. Therefore, this situation means that there is a lot of civilian activities taking place between South Africa and its immediate neighbours. These activities have been taking place in those areas for centuries. Therefore, at this point our concern is the fact that those areas have been hijacked by criminal elements who are then moving counterfeit goods through those.

communities for their own nefarious gains. It is for this reason that the BMA Border Guards would be statically deployed in those communities to monitor their activities with the intention to decisively deal with any criminal elements taking advantage of the situation. Further, the BMA would be registering those kind of areas and declaring them as Informal Community Crossing Points and statically deploy the Border Guards for monitoring those civilian activities.

In addition, there are certain areas outside the communities along the borderline which are being exploited by criminal elements for advancing their illegal activities. In this case, members of the SANDF and the Border Guards would collectively identify such areas (known as vulnerable segments of the border line) and get the latter to be statically deployed in those segments. This approach seeks to enable members of SANDF to freely apply their high mobility deployment mechanism while areas of concern are properly protected by the Border Guards. Further, since the Border Guards would have immigration, agricultural, and environmental legal empowerment amongst other prescript, the SANDF would be able to hand over intercepted civilians to the Border Guards for processing (e.g finger printing, declaring them undesirable and effecting deportations). Lastly, the BMA Act empowers the Border Guards to effectively protect the Port of Entry, including its 10 kilometres radius to detect any traveller who avoid using the port for whatever reasons. The deployment of the Border Guards to the borderline does not seek to compete with the deployed members of the SANDF, but

END