Porous borders facilitate smuggling

Lax border controls allowed people and goods to be smuggled across South Africa's international frontiers at will, according to the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS). "It seems that South Africa's international land border lines are open to whoever wants to enter or leave with illegal goods, including firearms, without being detected or brought to book for these illegal actions," said Ettienne Hennop, researcher for the arms management programme at the ISS and author of a report on the borders released on Monday.

He said border posts were 50 percent understaffed. But a main obstacle to effective control was lack of communication between police and army units. South Africa loses billions of rand a year in uncollected duties as a result of illegal imports, the report said. In 1999, the police seized 1,053 stolen vehicles, 266 illegal firearms, 30,000 kg of cannabis and 1.5 million Mandrax pills. They also arrested 40,000 illegal immigrants. The army is estimated to have arrested double that number.
The flow of illegal immigrants, which peaked in 1998, has not let up this year. With food shortages forecast in Zimbabwe, South Africa expects an increased flow of illegal "border jumpers" from the north.

Since 1994, the government has reduced the number of police and soldiers on its borders, the report noted. About 1,750 soldiers are deployed against 3,752 seven years ago, to prevent the illegal flow of people, vehicles, arms and drugs, in support of a declining number of police officers. According to the report, syndicates take advantage of the chaos at border posts to smuggle in firearms originating from Mozambique and Angola. Research by the ISS showed that border posts often lacked basic facilities such as electricity supply, living quarters, storage areas and transport. Although the government, with the help of international agencies, is trying to improve border control, the report said the government was falling short of its goals of better regulation.