Border agency looks to consolidated future management

The notion that a centralised Border Management Authority (BMA) to oversee all aspects of South Africa’s 72 ports of entry is dead in the water was thoroughly dispelled by executives from the Department of Home Affairs (dha) during a presentation at the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) recently. Addressing delegates during a question and answer session at the JCCI, BMA project manager Elroy Africa said significant preparation had gone into the authority ever since it was decided in 2013 to do away with the current “fragmented border system comprising various agencies – SA Revenue Service, SAPS, dha, the departments of environmental affairs, public works and Daff (Department of Agriculture, Forestry and fisheries).” Acting dha director general Thulani Mavuso said the BMA

had already been successfully debated in Parliament in 2014, and the relevant bill rubberstamped by Cabinet in 2015. “It then went to the National Council of Provinces (NCoP) for final approval where it has been since then. We don’t know what’s causing the delay but as bureaucrats we feel that we have done all the work that needs to be done.” Part of this work, Mavuso added, was determining that although detractors of the BMA felt that a wheel re-designing exercise was under way, a consolidated re-think and re-implementation of governing the country’s entry ports (EPs) was long overdue. “We sat with a system inherited from the country’s past that brought significant fragmentation of our border control. It meant that it was run by people who had different conditions of service and remuneration, enforcing 58 different pieces of legislation using automation

that was out of sync and having dissimilar tools of trade.” Africa added that “border fragmentation had become a breeding ground for people whose intention it is to exploit our ports of entry”. Despite the parliamentary foot-dragging by the NCoP, the BMA entered a launch phase in 2017 but hit a brick wall when it met the might of organised labour. “They thought that we were formally introducing the BMA and raised serious concerns. However, we wanted to roll out the authority with social cohesion and job protection in mind so we decided to place the pilot phase on hold.” The initial pilot phase, said Africa, included early BMA systems-testing at three different borders: Oshoek on South Africa’s land border with Eswatini, the Port of Cape Town, and Oliver Tambo International Airport. “It allowed us to look at all three domains of movement and entry – land, sea and air. “Oliver Tambo was perhaps a bit ambitious but we needed to learn crucial lessons before we could go ahead.” This, he stressed, was mainly because “we realised that what we were embarking

upon was perhaps one of the most complex restructuring exercises of government and so we were told to be careful in rolling out this new animal.” In the meantime Africa and his colleagues at the BMA are forging ahead. They have set themselves a target of 2032 by which time they will have worked their way through six implementation phases with the current, the first phase, being all about “doing the necessary enabling tasks”. The first phase is also expected to help illuminate

issues around BMA concepts, tested at low-key EPs, before the BMA is implemented at other ports of entry. Come 2032, the authority was expected to have completely done away with “the current system of fragmentary silo management”, Mavuso added. “By then we will have a system of centralised command and control employing more than 21 000 people using some 40 pieces of legislation with a designated BMA law enforcement unit at its disposal.” Border fragmentation has become a breeding ground for people whose intention it is to exploit such a situation.