{"id":85700,"date":"2026-02-25T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/siu-claims-bushiris-residency-approved-by-home-affairs"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:55:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:55:24","slug":"siu-claims-bushiris-residency-approved-by-home-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/siu-claims-bushiris-residency-approved-by-home-affairs","title":{"rendered":"SIU Claims Bushiri&#8217;S Residency Approved by Home Affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. <\/strong> <\/span><b>The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) says its investigation into the Department of Home Affairs has uncovered systemic corruption in which immigration permits and visas were effectively sold through organised syndicates involving officials and external actors.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Reading from a prepared statement on Monday in Pretoria, Acting SIU Head Leonard Lekgetho said, the Special Investigating Unit has uncovered a disturbing reality; South Africa\u2019s immigration system has been treated as a marketplace, where permits and visas were sold to the highest bidder.\u201cAmong those highlighted by the SIU was popular charismatic preacher Shepherd Bushiri, now based in Malawi. The SIU said Bushiri\u2019s Permanent Residence Permit was approved by an adjudicator who was a member of his church, ECG Ministries, describing this as a clear conflict of interest. Bushiri\u2019s application was supported by what the SIU described as a fraudulent letter of financial independence signed by a chartered accountant who admitted he was paid merely for his signature,\u201d reads report in part.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Eswatini<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Eswatini. The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) says its investigation into the Department of Home Affairs has uncovered systemic corruption in which immigration permits and visas were effectively sold through organised syndicates involving officials and external actors. Reading from a prepared statement on Monday in Pretoria, Acting SIU Head Leonard Lekgetho said, the Special [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":85699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-85700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-eswatini"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SIU Claims Bushiri&#039;S Residency Approved by Home Affairs - Eswatini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Eswatini. The Special Investigating U ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/eswatini\/all-news\/siu-claims-bushiris-residency-approved-by-home-affairs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SIU Claims Bushiri&#039;S Residency Approved by Home Affairs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Eswatini. 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