BY SETHABILE MYENI
MBABANE – The Swaziland Inter-state Association has warned emaSwati against using informal borders during the festive season.
The warning follows the arrest of many people who were found without passports and were suspected to have used informal entry points. Again, some public transport operators have also been charged for transporting people with passports.
The arrests took place at the Ngwenya Boarder Post in the past three weeks.
Secretary of the Swaziland Inter-state Association, Ncedi Magagula said they have been undated with calls for the past three days whereby Emaswati were arrested daily for using informal borders.
“We have been receiving calls from kombi drivers telling us that their passengers have been arrested and it went to the point that the drivers were also arrested. The South African Home Affairs has a law that whenever a vehicle reaches a point of entry, they should have all the necessary documents for each passenger including visas and passports. Unfortunately, our drivers are not well informed in that area; hence they face such challenges with their passengers,” he said.
Magagula explained that this law says if a person does not have a passport or exceeds the given days, the transporter of that individual has equally committed a crime and is supposed to face the law.
“This is why we have cases where passengers and drivers were arrested. I would like to urge emaSwati to stop using illegal points of entry and that they should pay attention to the days stipulated in their passports. This Tuesday we had a case whereby a driver was arrested and fined E45 000 for transporting three people that did not have passports,” said Magagula.
He added that there were close to 30 people arrested and they might not be home for Christmas and will be fined a lot of money or worse be disposed or banned from going to South Africa again.
“This becomes a very painful situation because some cannot afford the fine which is not less than E3 000, and some go to other countries to work and feed their families so if they are banned that means they do not have a job anymore,” said Magagula.
