A security chief at the Department of Home Affairs refugee centre at Customs House has been removed from his post.
|||Cape Town - A security chief at the Department of Home Affairs refugee centre at Customs House has been removed from his post while being investigated for taking bribes from refugees to help them get to the front of long queues at the centre.
The head of the Department of Home Affairs in the Western Cape, Yusuf Simons, on Thursday confirmed its head of security at the Customs House refugee centre was being investigated.
A Home Affairs supervisor allegedly saw the security official in question taking a bribe, Simons said.
For several years, refugees have complained that security staff at this centre, and at other Home Affairs venues, were demanding cash in return for helping them make progress in the queues.
Many refugees, since the days when large numbers of Zimbabweans entered the country, had complained of the same thing.
Last week, the Cape Argus reported an incident of crowd violence at the centre as queuing refugees lost patience with a system that forced many of them to sleep in the streets outside the building to have a chance of getting to the front of the queue.
An independent security company provides the security services to the centre under contract.
The department asked the company to replace the individual involved immediately after the claims of corruption, said Simons.
Simons said the claims were backed up when a Home Affairs supervisor saw the man getting involved in dubious actions with refugees and reported the matter.
Last week, asylum seekers standing in the long queue outside the building from early in the morning every day, became unruly and tried to storm the building. The police were called and had to act to restore calm.
Simons said the department wanted to prevent such incidents, which was why they had moved fast to remove the security chief in question. He said the centre was in the process of working on new arrangements for refugees applying for extensions and had appointed more staff.
“We decided last week that, instead of just extending asylum seeker permits, we also want to start finalising cases sooner,” he said. “We have scheduled more interviews with asylum seekers as a result.”
Cape Argus