{"id":333609,"date":"2019-08-07T10:43:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T08:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=333609"},"modified":"2019-08-07T10:43:46","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T08:43:46","slug":"airlines-fined-millions-of-rands-for-bringing-illegal-foreigners-to-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/333609\/airlines-fined-millions-of-rands-for-bringing-illegal-foreigners-to-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Airlines fined millions of rands for bringing illegal foreigners to South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Home Affairs has issued over R25 million in fines to airlines for bringing illegal foreigners to South Africa.<\/p>\n

In a recent parliamentary Q&A session, the department said<\/a> <\/strong>that conveyance fines are issued to airlines where such contraventions occur.<\/p>\n

While the department did not provide information on how many foreigners travelled to the country, its fine data shows that Emirates is the biggest offender\u00a0 – receiving R6,960,000 in fines during 2017\/18 and R2,670,000 in fines during 2016\/17.<\/p>\n

The next biggest offenders were South African Airways (R4.4 million in fines in 2017\/18) and Ethiopian Airlines (R4.1 million in fines in 2017\/18).<\/p>\n

“Further detail in respect of the fines cannot be provided due to current challenges with the revenue management reconciliation mechanism,” the department said.<\/p>\n

“The department is engaging the National Treasury with a view to implement improved measures, systems and revenue management (reconciliation) mechanism.”<\/p>\n

It added that no arrangements have been made with regards to ‘arrears’ as fines are not regarded as debt.<\/p>\n

Below, the department provided a breakdown of the fines ordered from highest to lowest:<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Conveyor<\/th>\nValue of fines issued for 2017\/2018<\/th>\nValue of fines issued for 2016\/2017<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Emirates<\/td>\nR6 960 000<\/td>\nR2 670 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SAA<\/td>\nR4 440 000<\/td>\nR2 160 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ethiopian Airlines<\/td>\nR4 095 000<\/td>\nR1 665 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kenya Airlines<\/td>\nR2 340 000<\/td>\nR390 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
British Airways<\/td>\nR1 350 000<\/td>\nR975 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Qatar Airlines<\/td>\nR1 350 000<\/td>\nR435 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Rwanda Airlines<\/td>\nR1 215 000<\/td>\nR225 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Etihad<\/td>\nR825 000<\/td>\nR285 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

South Africa is not the only country which fines for airlines illegally bringing foreigners to the country, and the issue has recently made headlines in New Zealand<\/a><\/strong> and the UK\u00a0<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2015, the Swiss<\/a> <\/strong>government said that it would also be instituting fines of between CHF 4,000 – CHF 16,000 per passenger.<\/p>\n

These fines are typically given out to ‘inattentive’ airlines who did not properly follow procedure when checking passengers for valid documents.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: South African Airways is getting new planes \u2013 including extra legroom and lie-flat beds<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Home Affairs has issued over R25 million in fines to airlines for bringing illegal foreigners to South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":315742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-333609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333609"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333637,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333609\/revisions\/333637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}