{"id":768849,"date":"2024-04-22T11:33:09","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T09:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=768849"},"modified":"2024-04-22T11:38:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T09:38:47","slug":"home-affairs-blowing-millions-on-legal-battles-and-its-getting-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/768849\/home-affairs-blowing-millions-on-legal-battles-and-its-getting-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Affairs blowing millions on legal battles &#8211; and it&#8217;s getting worse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has spent over R412.95 million in legal fees since the start of the 2018\/19 financial year &#8211; with over R117.69 million of this spent between 1 April 2023 and 29 February 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was revealed by the Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, in a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/pmg.org.za\/committee-question\/25458\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">written response in parliament<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DHA has seen an exponential increase in the amount that it spends on litigation, with the current amount for 2023\/24 (note these figures are until the end of February, several months short of the full financial year) nearly 16 times that of the amount spent in 2018\/19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since 2018\/19, DHA has spent:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>R148.57 million on private legal firms;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>R264.38 million on state legal services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/17660949\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at the breakdown of where the money is being spent, the department used to have a relatively equal distribution of the amount spent on state and private legal services back in 2018\/19 &#8211; spending around R3.6 million on each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DHA then exponentially increased the amount spent on state legal services in 2019\/20 by around 18 times more than the previous year, with these eight-figure bills remaining ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spending on state legal services has been hefty yet sporadic, whereas expenditures on private legal services have consistently risen, experiencing proliferated costs from 2021\/2022 onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2023\/24 has seen the department spend, for the first time in this period, considerably more on private legal services than on state &#8211; over 21 times more than it did in 2018\/2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/17661253\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Increase in litigation for the department<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Home Affairs has seen a steady rise in not only the amount of litigation that the department initiates, but in the amount of times it (or the minister himself) has been dragged to court.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the numerous recent costly court battles for the DHA include the widely publicised Zimbabwe Exemption Permits (ZEP) case and disputes over blocked IDs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>ZEP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in 2021, the Cabinet <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/546524\/south-africa-reverses-plan-to-send-200000-zimbabweans-home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">made a decision not to renew Zimbabwean permits<\/a> that are set to expire in December of the same year. After much resistance, the DHA <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/549274\/zimbabwean-nationals-given-12-months-to-apply-for-visas-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">then gave an extension<\/a> of one year for Zimbabwean nationals to apply for alternative visas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Zimbabwe Immigration Federation subsequently filed a lawsuit against the department regarding the termination of these permits. They requested that the termination be declared unconstitutional and invalid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In June of 2023, the court&nbsp;ultimately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.co.za\/news\/home-affairs-arrest-deport-zimbabwe-permit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ruled<\/a>&nbsp;against Motsoaledi, and granted an interdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Minister has since approached the Constitutional Court, seeking a leave of appeal after it was rejected by the Supreme Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blocked IDs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in 2023, the DHA sought to block nearly 1 million IDs over suspected fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Various legal groups challenged this, arguing that no law allowed the department to&nbsp;block an ID number, bringing into question the legality of this action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"ZVXIgpyZtH\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/719536\/south-africas-id-crisis-home-affairs-accused-of-illegally-blocking-over-a-million-ids\/\">South Africa&#8217;s ID crisis &#8211; Home Affairs accused of illegally blocking over a million IDs<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;South Africa&#8217;s ID crisis &#8211; Home Affairs accused of illegally blocking over a million IDs&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/719536\/south-africas-id-crisis-home-affairs-accused-of-illegally-blocking-over-a-million-ids\/embed\/#?secret=YFR1gReWYj#?secret=ZVXIgpyZtH\" data-secret=\"ZVXIgpyZtH\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Gauteng High Court aligned with this argument, saying that blocking IDs is&nbsp;an unjust and irregular administrative action that is inconsistent with the South African Constitution &#8211; ordering that the department pay the costs of the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/761971\/south-africans-love-home-affairs-for-its-effectiveness-says-motsoaledi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">South Africans love Home Affairs for its effectiveness, says Motsoaledi<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Home Affairs has spent nearly R413 million in legal fees over the past five years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":752777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[19423,6239],"class_list":["post-768849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-aaron-motsoaledi","tag-department-of-home-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768849","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768849"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768906,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768849\/revisions\/768906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}